The following statement was issued by the Communist Party of the Philippines following the devestating floods and landslides across the country.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chided Benigno Aquino III for insisting on blaming the victims whom he called “hard-headed” for residing in areas prone to flooding and other calamities.
“Aquino is engaged in a blame game in an abject attempt to deflect criticism from his government’s gross failure to put into place the necessary infrastructure for disaster prevention and preparedness.”
“Over the past two days, Aquino has been going the rounds of evacuation centers dealing out bags of temporary relief to flood victims in a desperate effort to save face. Still, he could not suppress his contempt for the toiling masses when he bared his disgust at people who insist on holding on to their homes and property despite the dangers posed by the massive floods that swept their houses,” said the CPP.
“The large majority of the victims of the floods belong to the poorest sections of the Filipino people who reside near creeks and riverbanks and other flood prone areas, not out of choice, but out of desperation in the face of their grave socio-economic conditions, lack of employment, low income levels and the absence of affordable housing,” said the CPP.
“For two years now, the Aquino regime has failed to undertake the construction of canals and floodways long identified to be necessary to address the state of decay and insufficiency of the current flood control system in Metro Manila and other areas prone to floods,” pointed out the CPP.
“Since assuming power in 2010, Aquino has cancelled P1.9 billion worth of flood control projects purportedly because these were tainted with anomalies,” said the CPP. “Yet, the fact that no one has been charged for plunder or corruption arising from these contracts entered into by the previous government, and that not one of these projects have been revived, only prompts the people to think that Aquino and his minions are simply busy negotiating their own kickbacks from these contracts.”
In an earlier statement, the CPP also pointed out that the Aquino regime has failed to put into place the necessary protocols to “control the greed for water” of hydroelectric power companies which endanger the people’s lives and their livelihood in their practice of filling their dams to dangerous levels only to open the floodgates at the last minute.
The CPP further pointed out that the Aquino regime is too busy enticing foreign companies to carry out mining operations of denuded forests and has failed to put into place any big-scale reforestation project, especially in the Sierra Madre mountains in Luzon.
Meanwhile, the CPP scored the oil companies for deceiving the people when it announced yesterday that they would implement a price freeze amidst the great devastation. “This is plain hypocrisy, considering that they just raised oil prices last August 7, at the height of the torrential rains and floods, while people were busy confronting the floods.”
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