Bayan Aklan calls for 'genuine independence'
BY BOY RYAN B. ZABAL

CALLS FOR GENUINE FREEDOM. Bayan Aklan chairperson George Calaor urges militants to join the struggle for a true and progressive government of the people (BRZabal)

KALIBO, Aklan – The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) Aklan joins the broad masses of the oppressed and exploited Filipino people in the quest for genuine independence of the country.
The 109th year celebration of the country’s independence serves as a challenge to the entire Filipino people to reflect, stand-up and act to answer the call of the time, said Bayan-Aklan chairperson George Calaor.
“There can be no true and genuine independence in the country when tillers who comprised almost 80% of 85 the million Filipinos, remain landless and could not even eat the fruits of their labor. Sila ang nagtanim, sila rin ang di makakain,” Calaor added.
Bayan Aklan also calls on everyone to join the struggle to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from her cheated post in Malacañang, taking this as a part of their patriotic fight to attain true and progressive government of the people.
“Let us be guided by the lessons and inspirations laid to us by the Katipuneros inline with their historical struggle against the Spaniards. Let us also be critical on how history being told, for it is very obvious that America is being featured as our savior in our quest against Spaniards, “ Calaor said.
In fact, America had exploited the victory gained by the Katipuneros during the 1896 revolution, and was able to take control of the country and made General Emilio Aguinaldo as their first puppet when Republika ng Pilipinas was established, he added.
Like Aguinaldo, Arroyo’s subservient to the dictates of her imperialist master - America , have led the country to the quagmire of poverty. Today, hunger becomes the everyday meal of 12.5 million Filipinos in the country, Bayan Aklan claimed.
“Great numbers of our youth today could also not be found inside the walls of educational institutions, that 4.5 millions of them are in the yards of sakadahan, seaports, in the streets begging and worst... for significant numbers of our children aging 13 up to 18 have engaged in prostitution just to augment the everyday and basic needs of their families,” Calaor pointed out.
Unemployment have also continued to increase in terms of rates that at present, there are 10.9 million Filipinos who become a wastage force in production under the government’s policies in privatization and labor contract only scheme of employment.
While in the countryside, peasants are eroded from the land they till by the storm of Arroyo’s policy on liberalizing our economy in favor foreign capitals.
Urban centers have also turned into forests of poverty among more than 68 millions Filipinos who had been deprived of basic social services because of the deregulation policy of this regime. All of these are cause of the wrath of this administration’s program on globalization.
“Who in the world of objective and humane normal state or of politically correct social standpoint would say that we enjoy independence, when the country and our people become sketches and shades of extreme and terminal social sufferings in the frame of greed and fascism in Gloria’s room of cheats and stealings? Who will say that we are a free and independent nation, when those who speak and stand for truth, justice and peace are declared as enemies, accused as terrorist and ordered to be persecuted by no other than, but by the state in favor of imperialists’ interest? Again, Arroyo has nothing to say of this,” Calaor said.