CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has bared its members are prepared to vote for candidates “with clear agenda and platforms on genuine land reform, support for farmers, and food security.”
“Farmers will be very critical on whom they will vote in the coming elections and opt only for candidates with clear legislative agenda and platform on genuine land reform, return of the coco levy fund, support for farmers and policies for achieving food security,” KMP said in a statement yesterday.
KMP chair Danilo Ramos said “we have set the bar high for this election’s candidates. Especially in the Lower House, we cannot allow landlords and political clans to further dominate Congressional seats and enact self-serving legislation,”
He said “we have the Peasant Electoral Agenda as our criteria for candidates from the local to the national level. We are so fed up with personality politics and politicians who blatantly insult the Filipino people’s intellect and political maturity.”
In its statement, the KMP cited the following criteria to be used by farmers in choosing whom to vote:
Support for genuine land reform and free land distribution;
Pro-farmer stance against land grabbing and land-use conversion;
Support for the local rice industry, support to farmers, and local agricultural production, genuine development of the domestic rice industry;
Subsidy for farmers in the form of production subsidies, calamity and food aid to farming families affected by drought and other calamities;
Support for the increase of wages of farm workers and junking of neoliberal policies in agriculture;
Return of the coco levy fund and assets to farmers-beneficiaries, increase of copra and whole nut prices, and immediate subsidies to small coconut farmers;
Stance on peasant political killings and human rights abuses against farmers and sectors;
Stance on the lifting of Martial Law in Mindanao, lifting of Memorandum Order No. 32 in Negros, Samar and Bicol regions and stopping of Oplan Kapayapaan that targets peasant communities;
Stance on issues of women peasants, fisherfolks and rural youth; and
Stance against Chinese intrusion and intervention in our territories, national sovereignty, and patrimony.
“These are the main issues that we look for in candidates and we will give our verdict on election day,” Ramos said.
