On the day of the final reading of the 2011 General Appropriations Act in Senate, thousands of youth, students, administrators, faculty and staff all over the Philippines held protest actions—candle lighting ceremonies, pickets, walkouts, campouts, vigils, rallies and strikes—against the cut on the budget of State Universities and Colleges.

Weeks and even months before, protests against the SUC budget cut already started. A week did not pass without a picket or protest rally held, crying out for higher state subsidy to education. To this, the Aquino administration responded with lies and deception. But the unity of everyone against the budget cut did not waver. After a successful 2-day national strike on the 25^th and 26^th of November, thousands yet again took to the streets on December 1, forcing the Senate to make a move.

This was the statement of Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut mass distributed days before December 1.

December 1: We March as One

We salute and congratulate the thousands of students, councils and organizations, educators, faculty unions and associations, employees and administrators in state schools nationwide who made history last week in a resounding expression of unity and commitment to oppose the planned budget cuts on education and social services.

We stood up, walked out and striked, not only for ourselves and our schools. We fought for right of every Filipino to education. We suspended our classes so that more students may be able to study. We barricaded our campus gates for days so that our schools may be open to more young people especially the poor.

We took action for the nation, and for the future. We lived up to being genuine iskolars ng bayan.

We expressed disgust over the fact that the government chose to fund debt servicing, pork barrel and military over education and other social sevices. We striked against injustice, against government neglect, against corruption. We called upon those in power to stand for the interests of the people and not the elite few.

Instead of heeding the people’s call, the Aquino government and its allies insult the people’s intelligence by responding with lies and lame excuses. These however, only serve to expose their criminal intentions. They provoke further our collective outrage by saying that tuition should be hiked to compensate for budget cuts, that tertiary education is a private good, and that SUCs should be abolished.

They arrogantly display their power and greed; they try to tell us that we can do nothing to stop their misdeeds. Through their grand lies, they wish to drown us in apathy, divide us and undermine our collective strength. They want us to abandon our fight, surrender and join them in betraying the interest of the Filipino people.

We will not be cowed. We have a duty to our nation and we have a future to fight for.

We are calling on all students, professors, administrators from state schools, private schools and high schools nationwide. We are calling on out-of-school youths, already injusticed by the current system. We are calling on Filipinos, workers, peasants who will be pushed into further destitution. On December 1, we march as one.

Let it not be said that we did nothing the day a few robbed the people of their rights, their hope, and their future.

Para sa bayan, para sa kinabukasan.

Ipagtagumpay ang laban.

KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUT!

Here are the pictures from different Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut formations nationwide!

Students from different units of the University of the Philippines System held mass actions to protest the SUC budget cut.

State universities and colleges in Iloilo also joined the national protest last December 1.

Mindanao State University also joined the protest.

In Davao City, UP Mindanao together with the University of South Eastern Philippines held a strike and temporarily paralyzed main thoroughfares.

Here are the pictures from the December 1 Senate Mobilization:

Hailing from different State Universities and Colleges in Metro Manila, Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon, students, faculty, administrators and staff marched to the senate.

Everyone sat in front of the Senate gates to listen to the insightful speeches of Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut leaders and allies.

UP Faculty regent Judy Taguiwalo giving a speech on the necessity for the youth to further their study of society in order to uproot its ills.

Senate Minority Leader Senator Allan Peter Cayetano updating about the developments in senate.

Congressman Raymond Palatino and Congressman Antonio Tinio joined the march to senate

Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut spokesperson Vencer Crisostomo giving a passionate speech, calling on the youth to act not only against the SUC budget cut but for social change.

An estimated 25,000 youth, students, faculty, staff and administrators joined the protest nationwide.

Here is the Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut statement released after December 1.

<h1>Advance our initial victory! Persist in the struggle against the budget cut! </h1>

We, the youth together with other sectors, have achieved an initial yet significant victory through our firm solidarity and collective action against the budget cuts to our State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).

On December 1, 2010, our massive national strike against the SUC budget cuts has forced the Senate to amend the 2011 national budget by allocating a P146-M increase for the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of our SUCs. This was made possible by the thousands of youth, teachers, administrators, and staff who intensely engaged the Aquino government with vibrant education protests.

As an attempt to break our growing and dynamic unity, the Aquino government and its cohorts have spun the lie that no actual SUC budget cut exists. But we have sharply countered such manic lie with critical thinking and passionate assertion. We have thus exposed the deceit of the Aquino government and its brazen plan to abandon the SUCs to utter destitution.

We have ascertained that Aquino’s “reform budget,” in truth, is no different from, if not worse than, the budget of the rotten Arroyo regime. For both, the same holds true: budget cuts to education and other social services amid billions of pesos given to congressional pork barrel, military defense spending, conditional cash dole-outs, and foreign debt servicing.

By itself, the P146-M additional budget is insufficient in substantially addressing the urgent concerns of the SUCs – deteriorating conditions, lack of facilities and equipment, low salaries, inadequate benefits and contractualization policies for the faculty and staff, and the imminence of tuition and other fee increase. Such additional budget in fact will only amount to P1.3-M if divided among all 112 SUCs. On the other hand, the budget for Capital Outlay (CO) remains close to zero.

Hence, the fight for our right to education is certainly not yet over. We must not succumb to complacency on account of our initial victory. Recently, the Aquino government has reiterated its State policy that support for SUCs will be gradually decreased. Department of Budget and Management (DBM) head Butch Abad, on the other hand, foretells the reduction in the number of the SUCs. These call for utmost vigilance and militancy.

In the immediate is the Bicameral Conference Committee (BCC) meeting of the Senate and the Congress which is set to finalize the 2011 national budget.  The Bicameral meeting is yet another opening for us students, teachers, administrators and staff to assert the removal of the budget cuts to the SUCs.

Our allies in the Senate and the Congress shall do their best to press their colleagues to stand in defense of our right to education by completely removing the cuts in the MOOE and CO of the SUCs.

More crucial, however, is that we arouse, organize and mobilize with greater fervor and broader unity in preparation for the Bicameral meeting. We have already proven something grand and historic – that genuine change is possible if we are united, if we are resolute and if we are militant in fighting for our rights and for our future.

So we shall continue the fight. And we shall be thousands upon thousands more as we advance to greater victories.

Kilos Na Laban sa Budget Cut!

News reports on December 1:

Students storm senate over budget cut on State Universities and Colleges

Palawan State University protests against SUC budget cut

Students protesting budget cuts on State Universities and Colleges

Groups troop to senate in protest of the SUC budget cut

Students storm senate over SUC budget cuts

Rallyists burn Pnoy Effigy

Aquino booed students protest SUC budget cut

For more updates on the budget fight, follow #PHstudentstrike on twitter!

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We are calling on all students, councils and organizations, educators, faculty unions and associations, employees and administrators of state schools nationwide to hold mass protest activities, walkouts, class stoppages and campus strikes starting November 22.

We deem it necessary to hold bigger and more effective actions to express our opposition to the
• budget cut for the operations of 97 state universities and colleges by a total of P1.1 billion,
• zero allotment of capital outlay for our SUCs,
• reduction in the scholarship funds of the Commission on Higher Education by P650 million, and
• inadequate funds for basic education in the Aquino administration’s 2011 budget.

We need to act now to stop budget cuts in education and other social services. The cuts will lead to skyrocketing tuition and other fees and commercialization of social services, which will result to a greater number of Filipinos being driven into further destitution.

We worked hard during the past months to appeal to government and our lawmakers to stand for the interest of the people. However, Aquino allies in Congress railroaded the approval of the 2011 budget, increasing in billions the pork barrel funds, dole-outs and patronage funds, budget for military and debt spending. They maintained the cuts in education and services.

Clearly, we need to escalate our protests as Senate is set to vote on the budget. Students, faculty, employees, administrators, and other stakeholders should build the broadest and widest possible unity in our campuses for the people’s right to education.

Assemblies and protests in our campuses must be conducted for several days and may take the form of big marches, sit-in protests, class walk-outs, etc. Stoppage of the operations of our campuses for several days and closure of classrooms and buildings will be a logical consequence brought about by the participation of large numbers of students and faculty.

We are calling for a culmination of the activities to a big protest march to the Senate on December 1 to deliver the strongest message against the education and social services budget cuts.

We owe it to the Filipino people. We owe it to the future generation. It is during these times that the youth are being called to take up its role as hope of our motherland.

During the coming days let us make history and declare: we are ON STRIKE for the right to education, for the sake of our nation and our future.

Para sa bayan, para sa kinabukasan.
Kilos na laban sa budget cuts!

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In the Philippines, the revolutionary movement is aiming for a qualitative leap from strategic defensive to strategic stalemate in five years, by taking advantage of the intensifying global and national crises and building on current strengths and experiences.

In India and Nepal, revolutionary armed movements led by proletarian revolutionary parties continue to advance with the support of the workers and peoples in these countries. The revolutionary movement in India is steadily gaining strength, forcing the prime minister to say that ;We are losing the war with the Maoists;. After overthrowing the monarchy and achieving great successes in the legal militant struggles and elections, the revolutionary movement in Nepal is now gearing for the seizure of state power to defend national independence and build socialism.

After two decades of blabbering about the “end of history”; the imperialists and their paid propagandists are being put to shame by the perseverance of ordinary workers and people in revolutionary struggle in order to collectively and militantly make history, and to put an end to such a backward and moribund system as imperialism.

All the struggles of the workers and peoples against imperialism and reaction are contributory to the relentless advance towards a new and better world of national independence, democracy, development, social justice and peace.  We call on the workers and peoples of the world to intensify their struggles against imperialist plunder and wars of aggression and open the way to socialism!###

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By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Founding Chairman, Kabataang Makabayan
September 11, 2008

Download .doc version: “Neoliberal” Globalization JMS

Thank you for inviting me to speak on the policy of “neoliberal” globalization and the worsening economic crisis in the Philippines on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the founding of the League of Filipino Students (LFS). I congratulate the LFS in Baguio City for its achievements. I appreciate the cooperation of the LFS with the Anakbayan, UP Baguio-University Student Council, the Nationalist Corps and the Politically Inclined Students in bringing about this important forum.

“Neoliberal” Globalization

First of all, let me explain what the policy of “neoliberal” globalization is all about. It is a policy of deception, misrepresenting monopoly capitalism as “free market” capitalism. It has been adopted since 1980 supposedly to solve the problem of stagflation, the phenomenon of stagnation and inflation going together and the vicious cycle whereby the attempt to solve either one of them aggravates the other.

In pushing the policy, Reagan and Thatcher identified Keynesian and social democratic state intervention as the root cause of stagflation for generating wage inflation and “excessive” social spending. They therefore espoused giving full play to the “free market” and giving the monopoly bourgeoisie and the giant corporations all the opportunities to raise capital resources, make profits without restrictions and get big tax cuts supposedly to develop the economy, generate jobs and make the working people less “dependent” on government.

To achieve the “neoliberal” or “free market” objective, the imperialist states headed by the US have launched an unrelenting attack on the hard won rights of the working class to job security, trade union organization and social benefits. Wage levels have been pushed down. Full-time regular jobs have been replaced to a great extent by part-time jobs. Indirect wages as may be in the form of social insurance, medical insurance, educational benefits and social services have been cut back or cut off. The real incomes of the working class have relentlessly fallen.

However, the “neoliberal” policy has given the multinational banks and firms of the monopoly bourgeoisie all the opportunities to accumulate capital and reap profits through the liberalization of investments and trade, the privatization of state functions and assets, the deregulation at the expense of the working people, women, children and the environment and the denationalization of the economies of underdeveloped countries.

According to the “neoliberals” or “free marketeers”, it is wrong to use the direct hand of the state for pursuing economic development and ensuring social welfare. But it is perfectly correct to hand out state resources, state contracts, subsidies, investment insurance and tax exemptions to the giant corporations and likewise to engage in accelerated military spending. No to social welfare but yes to corporate welfare. No to social spending but yes to military spending.

The “neoliberals” have missed the essential point about the problem of stagflation. When it arose in the 1970s, it was because Germany and Japan, which had been ruined in World War II, had reconstructed under the Marshall plan and all imperialist powers were once more caught up in a serious crisis of overproduction as a result of competition and profit-making at the expense of the workers. All capitalist economies were pressing down the wage levels in order to maximize profits and counter the falling rate of profits in the course of expanding production. At the same time, the US led the way in undertaking inflationary activities, including the profuse flow of US dollars abroad, the global deployment of US military forces and the war of aggression in Indochina.

The crisis of overproduction is consistently at the base of the crisis of the US and world capitalist system. By pushing down wages to maximize profits, the monopoly bourgeoisie unwittingly contracts the market for the products of expanding production. The crisis of overproduction becomes conspicuous when large stocks of goods cannot be sold, production has to be cut down and workers are laid off.

From decade to decade, since the late 1960s, the crisis of overproduction has become worse, with the problems of unemployment and inflation becoming more sticky and the growth rates actually stagnant. But since the official adoption of the “neoliberal” policy, the trick to conceal the economic problems has been to increase the money supply and make credit easy for the giant corporations and for the consumers in the huge American market. As a result, we now see a gigantic financial crisis generated by the US.

The US has lived off the people of the world by abusing confidence in the US dollar as global currency. It has gone into industrial decline by heavily importing consumer goods from East Asia. It has incurred trade deficits and has become the world’s biggest debtor. It has also gone into heavy budgetary deficits and domestic debt by rapidly increasing expenditures for military production contracts and global deployment of military forces, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is not only the US federal government that is heavily indebted but also the giant corporations and households. All of them are unable to pay their debts and are the major factor in the current financial crisis afflicting not only the US economy but the entire world economy. Twice have the US households been victimized in a big way since 1995 through credit and financial manipulations.

First, fund managers invested the pension funds of US workers on the hightech bubble which lasted until it burst in 2000. US households were enticed to purchase stocks on margin. At least 40 per cent of them did so. Subsequently, in a more sweeping way, US households were encouraged to buy on credit into the housing bubble which began to burst in 2006. The “neoliberal” policy makers and managers of the US economy had devised the housing bubble to provide US households an artificial source of further credit for consumption, keeping up their role as the biggest consumer market of the world despite the decline of industry and regular employment in the US.

But the US mortgage meltdown, which has become conspicuous since last year, has exposed not only the wobbly US financial system but also the financial plague the US had spread all over the world. The US banks and hedge funds, in concert with the Fannie May (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association), the two biggest state-backed mortgage banks, had repackaged the bad mortgages into collateralized mortgage debts and asset-backed securities and sold them to the biggest banks in various countries. Not only is the mortgage meltdown exposed but the whole range of economic and financial crisis in the US and in the world.

The current financial crisis, which is the worst since the Great Depression, has resulted in the tightening of credit, economic recession in the imperialist countries and depression on a world scale. The underdeveloped countries are victimized by the tightening of credit and decreased orders from the imperialist countries for raw materials and semi-manufactures.

Despite global economic depression, some sectors in imperialist countries have found ways of raking in superprofits and conjuring the illusion of positive growth rates in imperialist countries and even on a global scale. They are the giant corporations in fuel and food, which are the most basic necessities of all countries. They are inflicting terrible and intolerable suffering on the people of the world, especially those in the underdeveloped countries.

Impact on the Philippines

As a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country, under foreign and feudal domination, the Philippines has an inherently and chronically crisis-stricken economy and society. The only way it can end the underdeveloped, agrarian, pre-industrial and semifeudal character of the economy is to undertake national industrialization and land reform. These were previously prevented by the World Bank-sponsored Keynesian fiscal policy of promoting infrastructure-building to serve raw material production and commerce.

The current “neoliberal” globalization policy of denationalization, liberalization, privatization and deregulation has been far more aggressive in preventing industrial development and land reform. Under this policy, the Philippine economy has become more deeply underdeveloped and more rotten than before and become more vulnerable to the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system.

The “neoliberal” policy is imposed on the Philippines by the US through its puppets. It expressly prohibits the leaders of the reactionary government from upholding the key role of the state in mobilizing the people and economic resources for national industrialization and land reform. These twin objectives are supposed to be decided by the market rather than by the state and the people. Under the influence of “neoliberalism”, puppet leaders in the Philippines talk more often about the “free market” than “development” as state-supported industrial development.

The expression “free market” is actually used to mean leveling the field of competition with the bulldozers of the foreign monopolies and flattening the people to the ground. The expression “development” is limited to mean infrastructure-building with the use of onerous foreign loans and foreign supplies as in the time of the Marcos regime. None of the succeeding regimes since that of Aquino, which hyped trade liberalization, have paid even the slightest lip service to a well-founded and comprehensive industrial development, through the cooperation of the state and the Filipino entrepreneurs.

The 1987 constitution of the reactionary state has reduced land reform to a “free market” transaction, with the landlord selling his land voluntarily, demanding current market value or offering the stock distribution option. The principle of state intervention in order to realize social justice, such as the expropriation of landlord estates for affordable redistribution to the tenants, has been laid aside. The landless tillers are given the cynical advice that if they wish to own land they are free to buy even a piece of Forbes Park or buy stocks from Hacienda Luisita of Cory Aquino or from any of the many agricultural corporations of her cousin Danding Cojuangco.

Under the Ramos regime, the so-called medium term development program did not provide for national industrialization and land reform. But it pushed for the denationalization of the economy to benefit the foreign monopolies and big compradors. It violated the principles of economic sovereignty and conservation of the national patrimony. It removed the restrictions on foreign investors in banking, mining, agriculture, domestic trade and other types of enterprises. It allowed the unrestricted flow of foreign capital in and out of the country and the big comprador exporters of raw materials to stash away foreign exchange abroad. It ran far ahead of the schedule set by the WTO for lowering the tariff on all types of products.

The reactionary government incurred huge local public debt and foreign debt for infrastructure, especially in graft-ridden power generation projects conceded to foreign companies. It went into a privatization spree, selling off state assets and prime public land to foreign investors in order to cover trade and fiscal deficits. It created a boom in the private construction of office and residential towers and golf courses with the use of foreign commercial loans and favored the expansion of low value-added semimanufacturing of consumer goods under the auspices of giant corporations and big comprador firms, whose foreign debts are guaranteed by the state.

The financial crisis of 1997 brought down the Ramos regime’s claims to economic success. By the time Estrada became president, the reactionary government had gone bankrupt and foreign credit dried up to the extent that he was compelled to serve his corrupt appetite by taking payoffs from jueteng and using social security funds of government and private employees for the shadiest of deals. He was reduced to begging for infrastructure loans from Japan, which wanted to extract excessive trade and investment privileges.

When the turn of Arroyo came, she renewed the orgy of local and foreign borrowing and the frenzy of implementing the “neoliberal” economic policy which she had strongly pushed as a senator. The imperialists were pushing another wave of easy credit in accordance with the “neoliberal” dictum that economic and financial problems are solved by scooping money from the central bank into helicopters for these to pour out on the problem.

Under the “neoliberal” economic policy, the semicolonial and semifeudal character of the Philippines has been aggravated and deepened due to the absence of national industrialization and land reform, the unrestricted freedom of the foreign monopolies to dump their surplus products and to extract superprofits, the ceaseless landlord and corporate accumulation of land, bureaucratic corruption, the limitation on the country to produce for export only raw materials and slightly processed goods, the ever growing trade and fiscal deficits and the ever mounting foreign debt.

Like the Ramos regime, the Arroyo regime has been strenuously insistent on the denationalization of the economy. It has made so many attempts to have the 1987 constitution amended so that nationality requirements and restrictions on foreign investors can be removed from the economic provisions. At any rate, it has pushed further legislation as well as multilateral and bilateral treaties and executive agreements to promote investment and trade liberalization in favor of foreign investors to the detriment of economic sovereignty, the national patrimony, the working people and the environment.

It has allowed the dumping of foreign surplus manufactures and agricultural products on the country and has thereby undermined and destroyed the domestic production of these. It has continued the privatization of state assets and public lands. These have been sold to foreign corporations and to cronies. Laws seeking to protect the workers, women, children and the environment have been eroded or circumvented in the “neoliberal” spirit of deregulation for the profit-taking purposes of foreign monopolies and the big compradors.

The Arroyo regime has gone into unbridled deficit spending and foreign and local borrowing, mainly for the purpose of profit-taking by the imperialists and the big compradors, bureaucratic corruption and upper class consumption. Statistics of these go into the absurd game of conjuring the illusion of an annual economic growth rate. Counterproductive activities and borrowings which bankrupt the state and the economy are misrepresented as factors of development. Even as the economy is bankrupt and depressed, the Arroyo regime is giving top priority to servicing the foreign debt and is raising the tax burden on the people.

The Arroyo regime is overbrimming with loyalty to its imperialist masters. But now it is faced with the severe problems generated by the crisis of the US and world capitalist system. International credit has tightened. Foreign orders for raw materials and consumer semi-manufactures have decreased. To make matters worse, the prices of fuel and food imports are soaring. The giant oil and food companies have fabricated the media tales of fuel and food shortages in order to make a big killing in the “free market.”

The regime does nothing to restrain the foreign monopolies from ceaselessly hiking the oil price and inflating the prices of all basic commodities. For so long under the policy of trade liberalization, it has allowed the dumping of rice from abroad and has thus destroyed local rice production. It has made the Philippines the No. 1 rice importer of the world. It has also been utterly stupid in failing to build its reserve rice stocks and thus in having to buy rice from the world market when the prices are soaring.

Tasks of Filipino Students

The Philippine economy and society are plunging from one level of crisis and depression to another.
The Filipino students are suffering the rapidly rising costs of study and living and need to cope with so many problems arising from the oppression and exploitation of the entire people by foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

It is of urgent and great importance for the League of Filipino Students and all other patriotic and progressive youth organizations to arouse, organize and mobilize the student masses in their millions. You must unite and fight against “neoliberal” globalization and all other inimical policies of imperialism and local reaction. These are detrimental to you as students and youth because you now face not only the current rising costs of study and living but also the dire prospects of unemployment in an increasingly crisis-stricken and rotten ruling system.

You must also fight the US-instigated war of terror. This has taken the form of state terrorism and direct US military intervention in the Philippines and the US wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The violence that the US has unleashed all over the world is aimed at forcing the people to submit themselves to exploitation. It is the complement to “neoliberal” globalization. US imperialism is behind the gross and systematic violation of human rights by the Arroyo regime and its armed minions. We can expect the escalation of exploitation and oppression, under the US-instigated policy of “free market” globalization and the US global war of terror.

You must conjoin with the broad masses of the Filipino people in the struggle for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes. You must carry out all possible and necessary forms of struggle to advance the revolutionary cause. We can prepare for and proceed to the socialist revolution only by completing the new democratic revolution, by victoriously finishing the unfinished Philippine revolution initiated by our revolutionary forefathers. The people have high hopes in the Filipino youth as a resolute and militant force for revolutionary change.###

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Sa totoo’y walang kapantay na paghihikahos ang dama ng mamamayan sanhi ng napakalalang krisis panlipunan. Desperasyon ang kahulugan ng krisis para sa marami kung ikokonsidera pang nasa 80% ng mamamayan ang nabubuhay sa mas mababa sa P80 kada araw.

Umabot na sa 9.6% ngayong Mayo ang tantos ng implasyon o pangkalahatang pagtaas ng presyo ng mga bilihin sa bansa. Ito ay sanhi ng patuloy na pagsirit sa presyo ng pagkain at langis. Ayon pa sa ilang mga ekonomista, maaaring sa pagtatapos ng Hunyo sa taong ito, aabot pa sa lagpas 10% ang tantos na ito.

Halos lingguhan na ang pagtaas ng presyo ng langis. Hindi pa nangangalahati ang 2008 ay lagpas P15 na ang kabuuang itinaas na presyo ng gasolina, krudo, at gaas. Dahil dito, kaka-apruba pa lamang ng P8 minimum na pasahe ay nakaamba na naman ang higit pang pagtataas ng pasahe sa dyip.

Kasabay ng pagsirit na ito sa presyo ng gasolina at pamasahe ay ang patuloy na paglala ng krisis sa bigas at pagkain. Normal na ang mahahabang pila sa ating mga palengke para sa P18.50 kada kilong bigas na ibinebenta ng National Food Authority. Umaabot mula P45 hanggang P51 naman ang halaga ng “well-milled” rice.

At dahil wala namang pagtaas sa sahod, higit na madaragdagan ang bilang ng lulubog sa kahirapan. Umaabot na ngayon sa P871 ang pangangailangan ng isang pamilya habang P382 lamang ang minimum na sahod sa Kamaynilaan. Kaya naman higit sa 2.3 milyong Pilipino ang bumabagsak sa antas ng maralita sa bawat 10% na pagtaas sa presyo ng pagkain.

Sa mga paaralan, patuloy ang programa ng komersyalisasyon at paghuthot ng tubo ng mga ganid na kapitalista-edukador. Aabot sa 378 pribadong kolehiyo ang magtataas ng matrikula sa bansa sa halagang 10%. Patuloy din ang pagbagsak ng enrollment rate sa elementarya mula 108.31% noong AY 2002-2003 tungong 99.87% sa AY 2006-2007 at sekundarya mula 83.55% (AY 2002-2003) tungong 79.50% (AY 2006-2007). Aabot sa 11.6 milyon o 34% ng kabataang may edad 6-24 ang hindi na pumapasok sa paaralan.

Ang lumalalang krisis sa edukasyon ay sanhi ng patuloy na pag-abandona ng rehimeng Arroyo sa responsibilidad nitong pag-aralin ang mamamayan. P7 kada estudyante kada araw lamang ang iginagastos ng gobyerno. 2.26% lamang ng Gross Domestic Product ng bansa ang inilalaan ng gobyerno sa edukasyon, malayo sa international benchmark na anim na porsiyento.

Sa pagnanais na isalba ang sarili nito, naglulunsad ang rehimen ng mga programa tulad ng P500 subsidy sa kuryente at paglalaan ng isang bilyong pesong subsidya para sa edukasyon.

Malinaw na pagpapapogi lamang ang mga pakanang ito ng rehimen ang ugat ng nararanasang krisis ng mamamayan. Patuloy ang pagpapakatuta nito sa interes ng mga imperyalista, kartel ng bigas at langis, at mga kapitalista-edukador.

Kasabay ng pagkalantad ng kabulukan ng rehimeng Arroyo ang pagtindi ng galit ng mamamayan at ang kanilang kapasyahang kumilos para sa agaran nitong pagpapatalsik.

Sa harap ng napatinding krisis panlipunan, nakaatang sa atin ang tungkuling higit na imulat, organisahin at pakilusin ang masang mag-aaral at igiit ang mga interes ng mamamayan. Sa ating pagpasok sa paaralan, dapat nating itransporma ang krisis sa isang daluyong ng kilusang masang magpapatalsik sa rehimen at magsusulong ng pagbabagong panlipunan.

Dapat maging handa ang ating mga balangay sa pagrerekluta ng laksang bilang ng mga mag-aaral sa ating hanay at pangunguna sa mga kampanya’t pakikibakang masa sa mga susunod na linggo. Nararapat lamang na ilunsad ang mga walk-out at boykoteo sa mga paaralan laban sa napakatinding kahirapan at pambubusabos na ipinapakana ng rehimen.

Ramdam  sa kasalukuyan hindi ang kaunlaran kundi ang walang kasingtinding kahirapan. Walang kasingkatwiran na iparamdam natin sa rehimen ang galit ng mamamayan at dumadagundong na kilusang masa laban sa kabulukan ng sistemang panlipunan at patuloy na pagsalanta ng iilan at dayuhan sa kabuhayan at interes ng mamamayan. #

Ang artikulong ito ay una nang nailathala sa Commitment, opsiyal na pahayagan ng LFS. Maaaring magdownload ng kopya dito. 

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