As Protests Hit IMF-WB In Washington D.C.
NEWS RELEASE April 17, 2000
In a mass action coinciding with the big anti-IMF-WB protests in Washington, D.C., Bayan members picketed the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas this morning to denounce the Estrada regime's "connivance" with the country's foreign creditors in foisting new taxes, selling strategic state assets like the Napocor and further selling out the economy to big foreign interests.
Bayan also condemned the arrest of at least 700 in Washington D.C. on the eve of massive protests against the IMF-WB's "anti- poor and pro-imperialist economic policies."
"We want the IMF-WB out of the Philippines just as we want Estrada out of Malacanang," Bayan Secretary General Teodoro Casiņo said before hundreds of protesters at the Central Bank headquarters in Manila.
"It is no coincidence that several controversial measures like the Road User's Tax, the Omnibus Power Bill and the New Securities Act were passed separately by Congress while the IMF review team was in Manila," he said, adding that these measures have long been demanded by the IMF. He called the $1.38 billion IMF-led loan package tied to the passage of the Omnibus Power Bill "the biggest bribe of all, compared to the P500,000 each Congressman got for passing the bill." Aside from the privatization of Napocor, Casiņo said the Estrada government also promised to the IMF team it would rush the sale of government shares in the Philippine National Bank and Manila Electric Company, the privatization of the National Food Authority, the "corporatization" of 11 state hospitals. It further pledged to impose drastic cuts in public spending.
"The government is consciously, blindly and lustily following all these IMF impositions to the obvious detriment of the common folk," Casiņo said.
"This not only shows how good Estrada is as a stooge of the IMF-WB and as the director of economic chaos in the Philippines," said the Bayan leader.
Casiņo warned that bigger protests were in store if the Estrada government insisted on selling vital state assets and imposing new taxes.
Last month, transport groups launched massive strikes to protest the proposed Road User's Tax. He blamed the Estrada government and the IMF-WB for coming out with contradictory economic measures like cutting tariffs and paying fraudulent debts at a time when the government is starved for funds.
"Instead of selling the national patrimony at bargain basement prices and creating new taxes, the government should raise tariffs and stop paying loans especially those made during the Marcos dictatorship," Casiņo said.
This morning's protesters called for the immediate scrapping of the Estrada government's deregulation, liberalization and privatization policies which they said has kept the country an agrarian, backward and debt and import-dependent nation. ###