- Presidential candidates blasted the government for the tragic incident in Kidapawan City
- Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte called the dispersal of the protesting farmers’ picket lines “barbaric”
- Senator Miriam Santiago said the tragic incident was downright inhuman
Presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said the blood of the farmers killed in the violent dispersal of their picket lines in Kidapawan City on April 1 is in President Benigno Aquino III’s hands.
Duterte said the president cannot escape responsibility and blame for the “barbaric” incident. He accused the Aquino administration of being “impervious to the suffering of the people.”
“It all the more becomes more tragic and despicable that the same bloodline that benefited from the EDSA 1986 revolt have soiled their hands with the blood and tears of the Filipino people that allowed them into power,” CNN Philippines quoted the mayor as saying.
The feisty mayor, however, called for sobriety on both sides to prevent fuelling more animosity between the protesters and the government.
Those involved in the shooting should immediately be disarmed and investigated, the mayor said; as he urged the Commission on Human Rights to help the victims.
Another presidential candidate, Senator Miriam Santiago, also blamed the government for the tragic incident.
She said the government should be held accountable for the violent dispersal which she called as “downright inhuman.”
“It is vile enough that this administration has failed to support the farmers and lumads of Kidapawan during the prolonged drought in Mindanao. But it is downright inhuman for them to shoot at the same people begging for help,” Senator Santiago said.
Presidential race front runner Senator Grace Poe said the tragedy would not have happened if only the concerned government agencies have attended to the matter at the start.
The farmers have been asking the government for food aid for several months now to mitigate the hunger besetting their communities as a result of the El Niño climate phenomenon that started since November last year.
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