Jose Maria Sison: Rural Development Or Chicken Feed Palliatives?

January 25, 2021: The concept of development of the military morons in the NTF-ELCAC involves the following: taking over functions of civil agencies of the reactionary government and claiming epal or psywar credit for them, like the following: farm to market roads by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Department of Public Works and Highways — PHP12 million; school buildings by the Department of Education — PHP3 million; water and sanitation systems by the Department of the Interior and Local Government –PHP2 million; and reforestation and national greening program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and for health stations by the Department of Health — PHP1.5 million each.

These are mere palliatives. They do not spell rural development but bureaucratic and military corruption and preservation of land monopolization by a few. They involve graft-laden contracts with private contractors and suppliers.  They do not solve the basic land problem. The only contribution of the interloping military is to intimidate and terrorize  the poor peasant masses and the land reform advocates and to perpetuate the unjust system of land monopolization by agri-corporations and landlords and the exploitation of the landless peasants and farm workers.

The amount of Php 20 million for 215 villages in Region 11 (Davao) is chicken feed or even nothing compared to the hundreds of billions of pesos that Duterte and his military running dogs are stealing from the national treasury every month. Most of that Php 20 million, even as it is small,  will  be preyed upon by the lower-rank military officers and their barangay collaborators. The graft-laden small projects will not persuade the peasant masses and their revolutionary organizations to give up the people’s democratic revolution whose main content is to satisfy the peasant hunger for land.

Source : https://ndfp.org/rural-development-or-chicken-feed-palliatives/