DAVAO CITY”•President Rodrigo Duterte has asked the “oligarchs” to give their land back to the Filipino people in the next three months or he will tell the people to occupy their land.
Duterte, speaking in front of the thousands of labor workers here during Labor Day on Monday, said it was time that the oligarchs returned the land to the Filipino people.
He said the oligarchs should not be claiming all the land in the country without sharing it with the Filipino people who truly owned it.
“Within the next three months, I will tell the owners or those people claiming government land that you are not paying your taxes amounting to billions and you are using the land of the government,” Duterte said.
“It was unclear how you got that. If you won’t return the land to the government, then I will ask the Filipino people to occupy the land.”
Duterte said that, during his nine months in office, the economy had boomed since many foreign investors were entering the country.
He said that during his visit in China last year he opened up the exportation of Philippine bananas in that country.
He said the Chinese government told him that the problem was not the quality of Philippine bananas but had something to do with geopolitics.
“Right now we are short of bananas because were have been exporting them to China,” he said.
Duterte also said employment in the country had increased since there were several foreign investors entering the Philippines.
He asked the people to give the government time to fulfill his campaign promise of ending contractualization in the country.
He said that the Department of Labor and Employment was now doing something to help seasonal workers.
“I stand firm in my conviction to end endo. The labor code guarantees all workers the right to security of tenure,” Duterte said.