WITH two weeks to go before the May 9 elections, presidential candidate Grace Poe on Monday urged voters to choose a leader that will not bring the Philippines back to the dark days of Martial Law, when thousands were killed and tortured.
“Mag-ingat tayo sapagkat ‘yan ang ayaw nating balikan,” Poe told reporters when asked if she was worried about Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s statement that he was open to declaring martial law if there was lawlessness.
“Sa tingin ko malayo ang narating na natin pagdating sa kalayaan ng paghahayag.”
Senator Poe also said she could not stomach the injustices and poverty she had seen while campaigning all over the country.
“As a woman, a mother, can you bear to know that millions of children in the country are starving?” she said.
“Can you bear to know the funds that were earmarked for the treatment of the sick went to the wrong pockets or were wasted due to wrong spending?”
Poe made her statement even as the farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas on Monday urged her to rethink her support for the Metro Rail Transit Line 7 project that it said would “displace farmers from the more than 300 hectares of disputed agrarian reform lands” in Tungkong Mangga in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
The KMP issued the statement after Poe, when asked about the worsening traffic in Metro Manila situation in Sunday night’s presidential debate, cited the MRT-7 as one of the solutions.
According to Amnesty International, around 70,000 people were imprisoned, 34,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed during the nine years of Martial Law declared on Sept. 21, 1972 and officially lifted on Jan. 7, 1981.
“Marami tayong problema sa kahirapan, marami tayong problema sa kaligtasan, pero hindi natin pwedeng isuko ang ating kalayaan na magsalita na hindi tayo takot sa ating bansa,” Poe said.
“Hindi natin dapat katakutan ang gobyerno. Dapat ang gobyerno ang matakot sa atin ‘pag hindi ginagawa ang trabaho.”
Poe is back on the campaign trail after Sunday’s Pilipinas Debate, the last of three presidential debates sponsored by the Commission on Elections.
From the University of Pangasinan in Dagupan City, where the final debate was held, Poe proceeded to Calasiao in Pangasinan to meet her supporters.
