The anti-people policy of importation of agricultural products that the Marcos Jr. regime sustains and worsens stands as one of the biggest reasons behind the devastation of lives and livelihood of Filipino farmers and local producers. They have been burying the Filipino peasantry and their families alive. While the agricultural sector demands the firming up and recovery of local agriculture, support for the ordinary Filipino farmer and food security, the government has remained unstoppable in its insistence on importing hundreds of thousands of tons of onion, rice, sugar, meat, garlic, salt and other agricultural products.

The regime’s excuse that imported products will pull market prices down has long been shredded to pieces. It has been proven false repeatedly from the lethal rice importation through the Rice Tarrification Law up to the importation of pork meat that had not brought the prices in local markets down even once. Only big cartels and businessmen profit from the permanent dependence on importation. They are free to manipulate the supply and prices of primary commodities.

It is not surprising why some farmers opt to end their own lives amid these destitute conditions. Their products are bought at very low prices but when these reach the market, its prices hike up. Those who themselves produce food, ironically, has nothing to curb their hunger.

In the wake of this situation, NDF-Bikol strengthens its call for the class unity of the entire peasantry and their participation in the people’s democratic revolution. It is true that there is nothing they can hope from this rotten puppet state controlled by a dominant few but there is hope that lies in the unity of all oppressed and exploited. The nation’s biggest hope relies upon the realization of their own strength and the defense of their rights and democratic rights by way of the revolutionary struggle. NDF-Bikol calls on all the peasants and those who are fed up with this burden of a system to join the people’s war and be part of genuine and long-lasting national emancipation from poverty and starvation.