The Philippine Online Chronicles

Despite rainy weather and previous police dispersals, more protesters from various provinces are set to join the “Occupy” protests in Manila on Friday as the the bid to occupy the Mendiola bridge near Malacañang Palace enters Day 4.

Interaksyon reported that close to a hundred protesters from the southern Tagalog region boarding 10 passenger jeepneys are now on their way to Mendiola from Welcome Rotonda.

Students, workers, government employees and urban poor groups have camped out near Mendiola since Tuesday to protest rising commodity prices, low wages, widespread landlesness of farmers, and spending cuts on education and other social services.

Thousands of farmers from Hacienda Luisita, a sugar estate owned by President Benigno Aquino III’s family in Tarlac, are also expected to join the protests which will climax in the commemoration of International Human Rights Day on Saturday.

“This is the essence of 'Occupy Mendiola': the 99 percent of the Filipino people resisting the poverty and oppression which the ruling1 percent has imposed on us,"  Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of the youth group Anakbayan, said.

"Landless farmers, workers who are forced to go abroad, students facing budget cuts and tuition hikes: all of them are victims of the system in which the 1 percent holds all the wealth and the power," he said.

Families of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and members of migrants’ group Migrante International joined the campers on Thursday in front of Bustillos Church to condemn the government's inaction over the rising number of Filipinos abroad facing execution.

On Wednesday, police forces stopped protesters from reaching Mendiola bridge by using water cannons and truncheons. Dozens were hurt in the violent dispersal while five activists were arrested as the government drew criticisms for the handling of the protest.

"We condemn the Aquino government's repression of our right to hold protests even as it fails to solve the growing hunger and poverty in the country. The president, a beneficiary of the Hacienda Luisita massacre for which he has not sought justice, is showing a glimpse of the iron hand hidden under his velvet glove, " Elmer Labog, chair of labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), said in a report.

The Palace has defended the use of truncheons and water cannons in keeping protesters away from Mendiola, saying the police exercised maximum tolerence in its dispersal operations.

Militants have scored the Palace for keeping Mendiola off-limits to protesters, saying the site has been traditionally a venue for mass demonstrations.