Books Not Bullets, Classrooms Not Hueys.

Students lamented the Arroyo government’s misguided actions to appropriate more funds for military spending. “It has just been over a week after school opening, and we have seen sheer shortages of classrooms, blackboards, textbooks, and teaching materials but here we have a president that instead added budget for the military and war,” NUSP National President Marco Delos Reyes said.

He furthers “what’s more abominable is to have a ‘Justice’ Secretary saying that deaths of civilians are just part of the collateral damage of a war. For us, it’s his admission of the human rights violations they have committed and will be committing.”

President Arroyo on Friday announced that she is adding one billion pesos for additional equipments and machinery for the military to end in two years the insurgency in the country. The 1 Billion pesos is exclusive of the yearly P5 billion AFP Modernization fund.

It was also reported that Mrs. Arroyo has instructed her loyal DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya to purchase surplus helicopters and aircrafts from the United States through a soft loan. Secretary Andaya, meanwhile, said that the funds will “come from savings in the reenacted 2005 budget.”

“This is blatant corruption,” Delos Reyes quipped. “Mrs. Arroyo really pressured the legislature so as to have the 2005 budget reenacted, and now she’s corrupting people’s money for her rusted government’s self-preservation and war against critics, patriots, and nationalists she lumped together as the left and opposition.”

“Whatever happened to the reported additional four billion pesos for the DepEd? Whatever happened to the promised 200 million pesos for the state universities? Whatever happened for the additional 100 million for scholarships promised last May? Gone with the wind, I believe,” remarked Delos Reyes.

The NUSP has instructed its over 600 student council members nationwide to launch aggressive campaigns against the militarization and war, and to push for much needed reforms in education. “Students must organize discussion groups in campus lobbies, canteens, and elsewhere to discuss these national concerns and readily draft our urgent tasks. We will organize mass actions to show our vigilance and courage to defend democracy,” Delos Reyes declared.

Finally, he said, “students must rise up to these challenges of our time. We must write the correct passages in history and act against this tyranny.”