Bayan Negros and Kabacod Negros Transport Coalition (KNETCO) are staging a Negros People’s SONA in Bacolod City on Monday morning, July 22, ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address in the afternoon.
The protestors will assemble at the Rizal Park at Araneta Street in Bacolod City at 9 a.m. Monday.
Bayan Negros said the state of the lives of the ordinary Filipino people has worsened under Marcos’ watch.
Under “Bagong Pilipinas” there has been no change for the masses, a Bayan Negros statement said.
Lilian Sembrano, KNETCO president, said her group is calling on the president to junk the Public Utility Vehicle Modernization Program to save operators and drivers from losing their livelihoods.
They are also asking for the restoration of five year franchises, Sembrano said.
FASTING
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Advocates Negros (HRAN) said as the president delivers his SONA 100 political prisoners in the newly-created Negros Island Region will hold a day-long fast to dramatize their calls for the government to immediately address their human rights concerns.
The political prisoners, who will skip eating their three meals on Monday, are detained at the Negros Occidental District Jail in Bago City and in a few other jails in Negros Occidental and Oriental, HRAN said.
They are calling for the immediate release on humanitarian grounds of political prisoners who are already sick and elderly, a stop to the alleged threats of arrest and other persecutory measures by the Marcos administration against the Paghida-et sa Kauswagan Development Group and other peasant-oriented NGOs in Negros and elsewhere in the country.
They are also calling for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front.*