BY RUBY P. SILUBRICO
ILOILO City – The Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) sent 800 police officers to secure protesters and maintain peace and order while they were holding a mass action here yesterday.
Around 2,000 protesters from the province joined the rally, according to Iloilo police director, Senior Supt. Cornelio Salinas.
Of the 800 policemen, 170 came from the Iloilo Police Provincial Office. It included 70 civil disturbance management (CDM) personnel.
They roamed around in civilian clothes, Supt. Gilbert Gorrero, ICPO spokesperson said of the CDM.
The militant groups protested while President Benigno Aquino III was delivering his State of the Nation Address (Sona).
Bayan Muna-Panay chairperson Hope Hervilla said among those who joined were students of St. Paul University, Central Philippine University, University of the Philippines, West Visayas State University, and University of San Agustin.
They expressed dissatisfaction over the Aquino administration.
The rallyists wore black and red shirts.
A huge effigy of President Benigno Aquino III was set on fire after protesters paraded it around the city.
The business sector under the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) Iloilo Chapter denounced the “inability” of the Aquino administration to improve local businesses.
“Instead of improving the local business sector, Aquino and his local counterparts are killing small and medium business owners and worse, the transient and ordinary vendors of the central market,” said Rex Donasco, president of the Association of Stall Owners and Transient Vendors of Iloilo City Public Market Inc.
Donasco also slammed the privatization scheme in different public utilities – i.e. water districts, power, boundary terminals, the public markets, the hospitals, schools – which “is making the poor people poorer, and the rich even richer.”
Early in the day, a caravan was organized from northern, central and southern parts of Iloilo. They all converged at the Iloilo Freedom Grandstand for the rally./PN
