[asia-apec 1244] No to Rising Estrada Tyranny

[tpl at cheerful.com]

From:  KMP (Peasant Movement in the Philippines)
	E-mail: <magbubukid at hotmail.com>

Press Statement 
August 13, 1999

NEVER AGAIN! 
NO TO TYRANNY! NO TO CHA-CHA!

	ERAP the Menace is baring his fangs. Not content with auctioning our lands
to foreign buccaneers with his Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act
(AFMA) and dispossessing Filipino farmers of their farms through his
"corporative farming scheme", he now wants to rewrite the consitution in
order to bring our country back  to that horrible era of tyrannical rule. 

	It is bad enough that we have a president who facilitated the full
comeback of Marcos cronies and hoisted gamblers into the ranks of high
government consultants. It is bad enough that we have a president whose
Second Ladies, relatives, and cabinet underlings are turning government
projects into a cornucopia of anomalies, graft and venality. It is bad
enough that we have a president who in a matter of one year has matched the
subservience of  past governments by  imposing the Visiting Forces
Agreement (VFA) on our shores. It is bad enough that we have a president
who curtails the freedom of the press because he thinks that media
criticism has lessened his "macho" image.   

	Now, as if things cannot go worse than these, the tenant of Malacanang is
conspiring with big business, real estate investors, and bloodthirsty
police generals to rewrite the constitution in order to reverse the gains
of the Filipino people's struggle in  protecting their freedoms and civil
liberties and at the same time to  impose his warped idea of  government. A
government which is free to wiretap its citizens and arrest them without
warrants. A government  which allows aliens 100 per cent ownership of our
lands. A government  which is insulated from judicial inquiry so its
officials can make economic decisions  without any public accountability. A
government whose idea of progress is to bow to the dictates of the IMF-WB
and sell out our national patrimony to the World Trade Organization.

	For such shameless scheme, the Filipino farmers led by the Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), would like to tell Mr. Estrada: BE GONE! Gen
Suharto and the dead dictator Marcos are waiting for you! For never again
will we allow our countryside to be transformed into military camps. Never
again will we allow our homes to be visited by military elements who would
arrest our family members without the benefit of judicial warrants. Never
again will we allow  women to be raped. Never again will we allow our farms
to be turned into gravesites of salvaged kins. Be gone Mr. Estrada, because
we do not want another tyrant to reign in this already benighted land and
terrorize Filipino farmers, workers, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples!

	We call on peasant men and women and the entire Filipino people to stand
together in defense of our freedom, democratic rights and civil liberties.
Let us preserve the gains of our struggle by resisting and defeating this
grand Estrada conspiracy to reimpose "constitutional authoritarianism" in
our country. In  defeating charter change, we  defeat tyranny.   	

KMP (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas)