Moro group commemorates EDSA 1, calls for GMA’s ouster

COTABATO CITY – The Suara Bangsamoro (Voice of the Bangsamoro) organization here will commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the EDSA 1 People Power uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship on Monday, February 25.

The group will participate in the nationally-coordinated protest lead by Bagong Alyansa Makabayan amid fresh allegations of corruption and calls for ouster facing the Arroyo administration.

Bai Ali Indayla, the group’s national secretary-general, said that the NBN-ZTE scandal is just one of the numerous anomalies scourging President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration. Most recent is the massacre of eight innocent civilians in Maimbung, Sulu ‘where as commander-in-chief, she was held responsible.’

“GMA has no heart for the Bangsamoro people. In the guise of chasing after Abu Sayyaf elements, the Moro people are often times the victims. Among cases of killings, not even one was resolved,” Indayla exclaimed.

The group said that their action on Monday will be a build-up towards a bigger mobilization to a “new brand of people power” that was announced by Catholic bishops last Tuesday (February 19).

“Now is the time for the Moro people to be united in kicking out a corrupt and callous president. Under GMA’s tenure, the rate of poor Moro families has continue to increase as well as cases of rights violations and extra-judicial killings,” Indayla stressed.

According to Ibon Foundation, an independent research institute, seven out of 10 Filipinos are poor and jobless. Pulse Asia, on the other hand, reported GMA as the most corrupt president in the Philippine history.

Moreover, Indayla also lambasted the “unity walk” of GMA with her dummies as “a hysterical effort to project an untouchable façade in coping the enraged Filipino people.”

“Their effort shows that their days are counted as the day passes by. Their number continues to decrease every day. Whatever their efforts are, the Filipino people are certain in saying ‘Enough of GMA!’ The Bangsamoro people could no longer endure this corrupt, fascist and illegitimate government,” Indayla ended.