[As threats of eviction of informal settlers continue days before Christmas] Aquino's demolition rampage has no Christmas break -- anti-demolition network

PRESS RELEASE l DECEMBER 14, 2011
ALYANSA KONTRA DEMOLISYON
Reference: Carlito Badion, AKD lead convenor, 0939.387.3736

MANILA, Philippines--Alyansa Kontra Demolisyon, a national alliance against demolition of homes and forced eviction of urban poor settlers from their communities, condemns the series of demolition of homes of informal settlers a few days before Christmas, as threats continue.

The network has released a statement after some 300 families were violently evicted from their homes in Dypac Compound, Tondo, Manila last December 12 until this afternoon causing plenty of casualties on the side barricading residents. Eight persons were reported to have been seriously injured, excluding those who were arrested and detained in defense of their homes.

Not only will the residents celebrate Christmas without homes, but also some would celebrate the holiday inside the precinct," Carlito Badion, the alliance convenor says in a statement.

"There will be no happy Christmas for the thousands of urban poor nationwide who have lost their homes as well as for those who will celebrate their Christmas in the government's relocation sites, and who have lived in a hungrier and more impoverished state," he adds.

Massive demolition ahead
The alliance has also slammed the strategic eviction of urban settlers from their spaces in the country's urban poor centers to give way to different development projects under Aquino's Public-Private Partnership program. In Manila, the alliance cites, some 560,000 urban poor families has to be evicted based on the latest government report.

President Aquino has recently announced during the 25th anniversary of Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) that the Government has allotted P10.55 billion as relocation fund for the decongestion of country's urban centers.

But according to the network, "the P10 billion fund only means more violent demolition of homes to come, as no demolition of homes has ever occurred peacefully."

Badion adds, "The urban poor have denounced the twisted relocation program of the Government, and have learned to barricade their communities against threat of demolition. More bloodsheds shall expose the anti-poor and elitist character of current regime."

"As the government would face more turbulent days after the Christmas season, when Filipinos would be less optimistic due to economic crisis that they would need to live with for another year, President Aquino should not be comfortable with his high public satisfaction rating," he continues.

Seeking reprisal
"Aquino has stolen our Christmas, and our homes and livelihood. We vow to seek reprisal for the gross human right violation he committed against his own people,” the urban poor leader warms.

According to the network, as the people become hungrier, and angrier, Aquino needs to make his pro-poor stands to sustain his popularity.

"The first step would be increasing the wages of the workers, and creating jobs for the millions unemployed. Then, his penchant for big businesses at the expense of the urban poor has to stop, and so the demolition of urban poor communities,” Badion adds.

Lastly, Badion says, "A genuine agrarian reform and a national industrialization program free from the dictates of neoliberal policies will secure stability to his years of presidency, act as shield against the harsher effects of the global economic crisis, and pacify the mounting social unrest in the urban and in the countryside." ###