Duterte to give aid to protesting farmers, calls for dialogue
By ARMANDO B. FENEQUITO JR.
If nobody is acting on it, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte will.
Mayor Duterte is set to give assistance to the farmers who mounted a barricade in the highway of Kidapawan City, North Cotabato which resulted in a bloody dispersal on Friday.
The mayor, standard bearer of PDP-Laban in the May 9 presidential polls, made his decision after he learned on Friday night of the bloody dispersal between the farmers and the police which resulted to the death of at least three persons and the wounding of many others.
The protesting farmers demanded for rice subsidy from the government in the aftermath of the El Nino phenomenon that severely affected the former.
Duterte said his proposal in helping the farmers will require the passage of a City Council resolution allowing his office to give food assistance to an area affected by calamity.
Duterte, however, gave his commitment to give food as humanitarian assistance to alleviate suffering and save lives.
“We will assist them just to help them tide over the crisis,” Duterte said.
He said the city did this before when it extended assistance to areas affected by typhoon Yolanda and other calamities.
Duterte said the situation is a humanitarian problem that can be resolved through dialogue.
“It’s very sad,” he said in an interview on Friday night.
He said it is the only thing that he can do for now as a local chief executive.
“I don’t want to tinker with the ongoing dispute there. I am only the mayor of Davao City,” he said.
Duterte said he does not have the authority to intervene in the affairs of another local government unit.
“I will not go there to ask for anything because that is not my territory,” he added.
On Friday, violence erupted when police used force to break the barricade set up by around 5,000 farmers along the highway in Kidapawan City.
The farmers, reeling from the severe impact of the long drought that has hit the province, demanded the release of 15,000 sacks of rice and other forms of aid.
Farmers from different areas of North Cotabato province massed at the Cotabato-Davao Highway to dramatize their plight because government failed to provide them the needed food assistance despite the provincial government’s declaration placing North Cotabato under a state of calamity.
Duterte told reporters in Bukidnon that helping the hungry farmers “is part of the city government of Davao’s social commitment.”
“I was willing to go there, not for anything else, but to ask if I can help on the humanitarian side of the problem — that is to give the farmers food assistance,” he said.
Duterte has also called for calm and sobriety in the midst of growing tension in Kidapawan City.
“I am calling for sobriety. We need to keep calm,” he said.
He also urged the leaders of the farmers and North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Mendoza to dialogue, saying it is the best way to solve the problem.
“The leaders of the farmers and Governor Mendoza should talk about this,” he said.
In a statement, Duterte’s national campaign manager Leoncio Evasco Jr. blamed the Aquino administration for the carnage.
“All these barbaric attacks and needless sacrifices would not have happened if the government and the people running it had responded to the clamor for change when 30 years ago the Filipino people put an end to a dictatorship,” he said.
Evasco pointed out that President Benigno Aquino III cannot escape blame and responsibility for the bloody assault against the hungry farmers who were demanding food after a prolonged dry spell.
“A hungry people demanding food does not deserve to be shot,”Evasco said.
“An unarmed, defenseless throng of people asking for food poses no danger. In fact they are in danger. Why, oh why should government resort to this state violence?” he added.
Meanwhile, supporters of Duterte are working together to raise 15,000 sacks of rice for drought-stricken farmers of North Cotabato.
Supporters have responded after volunteer members of the Duterte Media Group started a donation drive for the farmers who are suffering from the effects of El Niño.
“They need our help now that the government is not responding and even playing deaf and blind to their sorry situation after shooting at them,” Duterte’s spokesperson said Peter Laviña.
The call for rice and food donations in social media drew swift and widespread response from people. Initial donors are the media volunteers of the Duterte group like Laviña himself, Joaquin family, Carlos Munda, and Doris Isubal-Mongaya of Cebu.
The Duterte Media Group has started accepting rice and other food stuff for the farmers. Rice and food stuff donations can be dropped off at Room 10 Pelayo Bldg., Camus St. Ext., Davao City (fronting Midori Inn).
Rice donations can also be dropped off at the Davao City Hall.
