The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) joined progressive organizations in a protest in front of the House of Representatives, morning of December 17, 2024. As the House adjourns for the holidays, the Filipino people are left with the writhing pains of government neglect: criminal misallocation of the national budget, and the inaction of the Lower House to advance Sara Duterte’s impeachment proceedings.

While budgets for basic social services are slashed, farmers remain uncompensated amid multiple climate disasters earlier this year. Earlier today in a statement, KMP condemned the reinstating of AKAP masquerading as a pro-people program yet it is vulnerable to corruption. The Romualdez-helmed project is set to cascade unsavory use of the nation’s budget and will seemingly fund election campaigns and vote-buying of incumbent legislators.

Groups also call for the House to finally transmit the impeachment complaint to the senate before the 2025 elections rolls in. Duterte is accused of an astonishing and unexplained misuse of the Office of the Vice President’s of ₱612.5 million in confidential funds.

However, it is important to mention the massive ₱4 billion allocation in the Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) of the Office of the President (OP) that only bolsters the government’s surveillance, red-tagging, and militarization that put farmers at risk, and has claimed their lives under counter-insurgency operations. 2024 has seen the uptick of enforced disappearances, and multiple landmark cases of human rights violations against peasant leaders and rural communities, and is expected to increase in the following year amid OP CIF retention.

This month alone on December 12, two coconut farmers Ronilo Villanueva and Genero were shot and arrested by the 85th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in Guinhalinan, San Narciso town in Quezon province in a feigned military encounter.

KMP reiterates the calls for immediate attention to address the people’s worsening problems perpetrated by the Marcos Jr. regime, starting with the swift action to impeach Sara Duterte, the elimination of dubious budget allotment and an amendment to the mutilated 2025 national budget, and to empower local production and pursue genuine agrarian reform.