Blocked. Militant farmers are blocked on their way to
Mendiola after another group held a lighting rally outside the gates of Malacañang in the morning.
***
Spratlys ‘sellout’
seen as treason
Gloria scored for bowing to Beijing pressure
BY JP LOPEZ
SENATE minority leader Aquilino
Pimentel Jr. yesterday said "the proposed exclusion of
the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal from the Philippine
archipelagic baseline as proposed by Malacañang to
placate China is tragic, if not treasonous."
"It’s the duty of President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo to assert our territorial claims
forcefully but peacefully," he said.
He said the Palace efforts to block
the bill’s passage only fuels suspicion that the Arroyo
government is wary of offending China due to its offer
of economic and business packages alongside soft loans.
PRESIDENT Arroyo yesterday ordered the
Department of Agriculture to ensure there would be no rice pest
infestation so that the country could meet its production target
for this year.
The DA last month placed under control the
rice black bug (RBB) infestation found last January in the
coastal town of Dinapigue, in Isabela.
The RBB (scotinophara coarctata) could cause
up to 35 percent damage in the crops in the form of
half-developed and empty grains. It is common in rain-fed and
irrigated wetland environments. It infests the bases of the rice
stems, causing the plant to weaken.
THE Presidential Security Group suddenly went
on red alert yesterday after it was caught flat-footed by 20
farmers who slipped into the Malacañang compound by riding a
jeepney plying the San Miguel-Quiapo route and held a lightning
rally near the New Executive Building.
The farmers, who are members of Task Force
Mapalad, disembarked at around 10:15 a.m. at the Arias st. gate
of the Malacañang compound, which is about 30 meters from the
Palace main gate.
The farmers expressed their sentiment –to
distribute the lands owned by the Arroyo family in the
157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Negros Occidental province – in
red letters written on their bare chests.
