DAVAO CITY—President Duterte vowed to push with land reform even after the remaining member of the political Left in his Cabinet, Rafael V. Mariano of the Department of Agrarian Reform, was rejected by the powerful Congress’s committee on appointment.
“We will go ahead with land reform,” Duterte said in a quick statement in between rendering some songs during the media party Malacañang held here for local reporters last Friday.
He did not elaborate, but he made the statement after he expressed his disappointment with the broadsides hurled by the Left, which he criticized as having misunderstood his current position as the President.
Where before the Left could easily ask his intercession or mediation for the safe release of their arrested leaders or members, or to facilitate the safe release of captured soldiers or police, Duterte said “they should understand that I am now the President”.
While he said he could not assume that role now, he also insisted he remained a socialist, and announcing he would push with land reform to show that he meant to continue with his “pro-people advocacies” he vowed to do during the campaign.
He said he would allocate 1,000 housing units for New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas who would return to the government fold.
“Watch out, but I am the only one [in the government] the NPA would listen to when I ask them to surrender,” a veteran journalist here quoted the President as saying in their table.
Duterte sat at the center table near the stage at the hall of the Matina Enclaves condominium building here. With him were singers April Boy Regino and his son and the group that composed the jingle that egged him to run during the Presidential campaign then. Five veteran journalists also sat in his table.
It was his first public reaction to the criticism of the Left, which marked the anniversary of the declaration of martial law in 1972 with widespread street protests in major cities, including in Mindanao.
He did not issue any warning though, but turned his ire on the political opposition who he branded as unable to move on past their defeat in last year’s Presidential election.