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MULTISECTORAL organization Tuesday urged the government
to provide immediate economic relief—including the
suspension of the revised value-added tax (R-VAT) on
food, medicine and utilities—to enable the people to
survive the food crisis the country is facing.
The Fair
Trade Alliance (FTA) came up with a joint declaration
emphasizing the need not only to tap the government for
solutions to the present crisis but also to unite and
work together practicing the Filipino ethos of “damayan,
bayanihan and tangkilikan.”
Among
the signatories to the joint declaration were former
senator Wigberto Tañada; Dr. Rene Ofreneo, executive
director of the FTA; Dave Diwa, labor convener of the
FTA; Roy Ribo of the
Alliance
for Rural Concerns; and dean Jorge Sibal of the
University of the Philippines School of Labor and
Industrial Relations (UP-Solair).
Diwa
explained the declaration contains 11 demands that are
aimed at helping different sectors in society recover
from the crisis in the country.
Besides
suspension of the R-VAT on food, medicine, water,
electricity, transportation and building materials and
supplies, the FTA is seeking the cancellation of the
Philippines-China farm and fisheries agreements, which
give China a direct management access to over 1.2
million hectares of Philippine land.
Although
the government is providing food subsidy to the poor,
Diwa said, “We still have to watch and make sure that
the project will continue.”
The
other demands in FTA’s declaration are: the government
direct the National Food Authority to buy palay directly
from the farmers; issue an executive order allowing
communities to plant food crops in idle lands;
strengthen and expand the delivery of health, housing
and other social services; that the Social Security
System and Government Service Insurance system
strengthen, develop and speed up delivery of services to
pensioners and retirees; passage of the proposed laws on
cheap medicines, antismuggling and agrarian reform law
extension; and for the regional tripartite wages and
productivity boards to forge a reasonable compromise on
the appropriate minimum wage adjustments. |
