Anti-Pork advocates to Beneficiaries: “Understand us”

CEBU, Philippines - Thousands are expected to join the massive inter-faith rally against the pork barrel fund on Sunday, September 29.

The organizers are asking the people with good hearts and clean conscience, especially the beneficiaries who would be painfully affected by pork barrel abolition, to understand the move.

“May they understand the gravity and urgency of this radical solution. May they bear and see this temporary sacrifice as the birth pangs for the emergence of a better way of managing government resources and of improving the delivery of government services,” said Msgr. Rommel Kintanar in a press statement.

Kintanar of the Archdiocesan Discernment Group of Cebu is a co-convenor of the Cebu Coalition Against the Pork Barrel System.

Kintanar said that during the rally, they will not only say why they are against the pork barrel system but they will also present some of the potential solutions and alternatives.

Participants will assemble at the Fuente Osmeña Circle at 1:00 in the afternoon followed by a march down to Osmeña Blvd. towards Plaza Independencia where a mass will be concelebrated.

The statement added that over 50 religious, civil society, academic, and business organizations have coalesced to form this protest event against the “pork barrel system”.

Heads of Cebu schools such as the University of Cebu, Cebu Doctors University, University of San Carlos, University of the Visayas, St. Theresa’s College, and other Catholic schools will encourage their students and faculty to join the event.

The rally will include leaders of different faiths praying for the well-being of the country by getting rid of the pork barrel system, patronage politics and corruption in general.

Several individuals from various sectors of society will speak up and share with others how the pork barrel scam has negatively affected their lives.

Guest performers such as Budoy and the Sining Dilaab Tribal Progressive Band will entertain the crowd with their “pork barrel related” numbers.

In addition, Ingko Alisyon (in coalition), will help inform and regale the crowd with very educational, yet simple parables and make this complex national tragedy much easier to understand.

The program also includes the reading of the Unity Statement in English and Cebuano, signing of the statement throughout the event, and a special candle lighting called “Ten Thousand Points of Light”.

Meanwhile, the newly-formed labor coalition, the Living Wage Coalition-Cebu with over 50 labor unions and federations as members will also join the rally.

“Workers are paying taxes and this pork barrel issue is an issue also of the working class,”said Dennis Derige, spokesperson of Partido ng Manggagawa-Cebu, one of the members of the said labor coalition. (FREEMAN)