The Standard - 2016 April 1 - Friday

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VOL. XXX NO. 48 3 Sections 32 Pages P18 FRIDAY : APRIL 1, 2016 www.thestandard.com.ph editorial@thestandard.com.ph

DoTC misses deadline on MRT

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FARMERS REFUSE TO LIFT BLOCKADE By Christine F. Herrera and Sandy Araneta

SOME 6,000 starving farmers stood their ground on Day 2 of their human barricade of the Cotabato-Davao highway to demand that the government give them 15,000 sacks of rice as aid for as many families affected by the severe drought. Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas secretary-general Antonio Flores said the drought-stricken farmers lay

on the highway and stayed there for two days now to dramatize their plight and to protest the government’s in-

action after five months of drought brought on by the El Niño phenomenon. “Farmers are demanding the release of 15,000 sacks of rice as subsidy to farmers which was previously approved by North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Talino-Mendoza. The NFA simply told the farmers that their demand is ‘under process’,” Flores said. Flores said the farmers from Makilala, Mlang, Tulunan, Magpet, Roxas, Antipas, Arakan towns and Ki-

dapawan City set up camp near the National Food Authority warehouse in Kidapawan City. The barricade has stopped traffic from moving both ways along the highway. Negotiations between farmers, the local government and the NFA were ongoing at the Diocese of Kidapawan mediated by Diocese Administrator Lito Garcia. He said the farmers would lift the barricade only after their demands were met.

“Even the rice field rats and snakes evacuated the areas because there was nothing left to feed on in the farms,” Flores said. The KMP also lambasted the North Cotabato police for alleging that farmers were duped into joining the ongoing massive protests that barricaded the Davao-Cotabato highway to demand urgent calamity assistance to farmers and lumad—or native tribes—severely affected by drought in the province. Next page

Protest. More than 6,000 farmers stand their ground near the National Food Authority warehouse in Kidapawan City on Thursday as they demand the release of 15,000 sacks of rice because of the drought in North Cotabato.

Binay promises unifying admin

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Tacloban mayor also denounces Mar comic By Christine F. Herrera, John Paolo Bencito and Sandy Araneta TACLOBAN City Mayor Alfred Romualdez described as malicious and fictitious the account being circulated in a comic book used in the presidential campaign of administration candidate Manuel Roxas II that said the mayor as partying the

night before the killer Typhoon “Yolanda” flattened his city in November 2013. “I am upset. Taclobanons are so upset because they saw me doing the rounds, busy evacuating people the night I was portrayed as partying, and a barangay chairman, who I woke up after the command conference, thanked me after the storm because had I not forced him to evacuate and had he not heeded, he

and his daughter would have perished because their house was washed away,” Romualdez said. Reacting to the Roxas comic book, Romualdez offered to set the record straight with a detailed account of what happened the day Yolanda struck, and how these events showed that the national government went to Tacloban Next page unprepared.


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The Standard - 2016 April 1 - Friday by Manila Standard - Issuu