"These ASEAN leaders will not be discussing possible palliatives for thepeople, only measures on how the effects of the global and regional criseson the profits of big businesses and capitalists can be lessened.Predictably, the welfare of the foreign monopoly-capitalist investors will be primary on the ASEAN agenda, while scant, and token attention will be

given the basic sectors of society - the workers and employees, peasants, the urban and rural poor primarily. This meeting is a superfluity, and it's an outrage that the Filipino people will have to bear the expenses of such an useless meeting," he said. Beltran also expressed outrage at the demolition of the urban poor community in the CCP complex being implemented by the Manila local government in close coordination with Malacanang. "It's abhorrent that everytime this government, like the regimes before it, wants to show off to foreigners, its first impulse and action is to attack its own impoverished constituents and drive them away from their shanty-homes. It blames its own people for their poverty and the 'ugliness' of their lives and homes; and at the same time it has to gall to wash its hands of its disgraceful role in keeping this social set-up where people are forced to live below decent standards of living. These demolitions are part of the ostentatious, pretentious, and heartless preparations for the ASEAN informal meetings," Beltran said. "The hypocrisy of this government and the anti-people, pro-foreign monopoly capitalism it represents is so bloated that it can no longer be hidden from the public eye. Government trips all over itself to impress foreigners and visitors to the country, and it goes whole-hog to do this, sparing no expense, sparing no one, especially not the poor. KMU will not allow this government to show -off at the people's expense, and we intend to embarrass and humiliate this government by continuing to expose the wretched realities of Philippine society," he added.

Beltran said that KMU will join other militant and progressive people's and church organizations allied with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) in holding pickets and demonstrations tomorrow in protest of the demolitions and the ASEAN informal meets.