AGRARIAN reform beneficiaries (ARBs) are appealing to the National People’s Army (NPA) to stop harassing big plantations in Mindanao if they really want to help farmers.
“If the NPA rebels are truly for the people, why deprive the masses of their livelihood?,” they said in a statement.
The ARBs also appealed to the Aquino administration to stop the rebels from attacking plantations because they might shut down their operations, laying off hundreds of thousands of farm workers.
Last year, the NPAs attacked Mindanao plantations almost on a monthly basis beginning in January until November. The rebels have been accused of burning heavy equipment, container vans and cargo trucks loaded with bananas in various parts of Mindanao, such as T’boli and Surallah in South Cotabato; Barobo and Lianga in Surigao del Sur; Quezon, Bukidnon; Maco, Compostela Valley; and Maasim, Sarangani Province.
“The attacks stopped, probably because of the annual ceasefire agreement during December, but the NPAs have stepped up their violent activities against the plantations starting late January up to last week.
The number of attacks in less than a one-month period, covering January 22 to February 19, 2016, already equaled the number of attacks for the whole of 2015,” the ARB said,
The communist rebels, in less than a month this year, burned four spray trucks, a warehouse inside a packinghouse compound and other heavy equipment from eight different plantations in Bukidnon, Agusan del Norte and south Cotabato.
The turbulent situation in Mindanao could stop further expansion of the plantations, at the very least, but it could worsen when multinationals start packing up and leaving for other countries eyeing to grab the lucrative fruits export market in Asia and the Middle East from Mindanao exporters.
Casualties
The attacks have not yet resulted in any physical casualty to plantation workers but a much greater injury awaits, not only the farm laborers but also the economy in general, Eduardo Maningo, a spokesman for the ARBs said.
Banana plantations alone account for 83,000 hectares in Mindanao and at an average of four direct and indirect workers, the banana industry employs 332,000 workers. Together with their families, a potential of two million people will lose their livelihood.
The government will also lose the taxes collected through property taxes, business permits, VAT and income taxes, among others, derived from investments of the multinationals.
Aerial spray planes
Last week, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) in Mindanao warned large banana plantations to stop the use of aerial spray planes or rebels will be forced to shoot down their aircrafts.
Ka Malaya, a spokesperson of the NDF cited the damage that the fungicides cause to workers, residents, and the environment. Big banana plantations use low-flying airplanes to spray fungicides at the banana leaves to prevent the sigatoka disease from infecting banana fruits.
Ka Malaya said that the banana plantations had been warned in December last year, “but they continued to use this, not considering the damage it causes to the surrounding people, plants and animals,” she said.
However, all these allegations have been refuted by farm workers and other residents around the plantations, claiming their environment have remained still conducive for farming and raising animals. They said they’ve been living healthy lives for more than three decades, even with the plantations employing aerial spray.
Also, plantation owners said that even if there are illnesses and damages, they are willing to rectify the situation by helping them with their medical needs. However, nobody has really proven that they got sick because of aerial spray, they said.
Ka Malaya called on “pilots of the aerial-spray aircrafts to stop and look for other jobs. Even if they are not the targets of the shooting, they are at risk to be hit by the bullets,” she said.
An armed conflict is far from what the ARBs want, said Maningo.
“The government should step in and do something about it. If the government doesn’t do anything, then we will all be losers,” he said.
The country’s employment problem is seen to worsen if the government is not able to solve the Mindanao crisis. Thousands of the country’s Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been laid off in the Middle East as the region suffers a crisis due to the declining oil prices.
With the potential plantation workers losing their jobs and the OFWs with jobs returning from overseas, the country faces a terrible problem.
“Maybe this is what the NDF wants. Asa na lang mi puniton?” (Where will we end up?), a farm worker said.
Source: Sun Star