COTABATO CITY – Communist rebels on Wednesday owned up to the daring raid on a logging company in Sultan Kudarat province in southern Philippines.
Ka Efren Aksasato, a spokesman for the New People’s Army, said rebel forces destroyed a backhoe and a grader, two dump trucks, a logging truck, among other assets of the M & S Company Incorporated, an affiliate of the David M. Consunji Incorporated, in the village of Hinalaan in Kalamansig town.
He said the punitive action was carried out by the NPA’s Mount Daguma Front Operations Command.
“The Lumad and peasant masses in the area have persistently demanded to hold accountable and punish the company for numerous atrocities to the civilian populace affected by their operation,” Aksasato told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He also accused the company of land grabbing and human rights violations, among other serious crimes against the Dulangan-Manobo tribes.
“It has been four decades, or since DMCI acquired the M & S Company from the Magsaysay family, that Consunji have unceasingly encroach the Dulangan people in Sultan Kudarat. String of atrocities and human rights violations perpetrated by fascist government troops, company-hired paramilitary groups and company guards were directly connected to the company’s aggressive operation,” Aksasato said.
He said the depressing plight of the Dulangans worsened at the course of the company’s implementation of the Integrated Forest Management Agreement or IFMA that begun early in 1990.
He said the tribesmen had been prevented from tilling their own farms and those who attempted to do so were harassed by company guards.
“Fearing for their lives, they were forced to leave their communities. Their farms planted with native coffee, corn and various food crops were bulldozed and cleared. And before long, the company started planting Arabica coffee, eucalyptus deglupta (bagras), gmelina arborea, acacia mangium, pinus carribea, falcata, and mahogany among others,” he said
Aksasato said the tribesmen have been opposing the encroachment in their ancestral domain, but can do so little to protect their rights.
In August last year, he said some 300 residents gathered and barricaded the logging area in Sitio Elem in the village of Salangsang in Lebak town to protest the clearing up of their farms and demolition of their houses for the construction of logging roads.
Aksasato said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau in 2000 approved the Mineral Production Sharing Agreement for Kalinan Timber Corporation now South Davao Development Company Incorporated – another DMCI affiliate – covering 1,274 hectares of mineral-rich area within the M & S Company IFMA concession.
He said while the M & S Company and DMCI insist that they are pursuing an environmentally sustainable and financially viable approach that directly addresses poverty alleviation, jobs creation, and the decentralization of progress, as well as the imperative of preserving and developing the forest resources, the Dulangan and settlers incessantly decry their poverty, landlessness and beleaguered state, injustices and government neglect.
“More and more masses are dispossessed of their lands and means of living while Consunji revels in super profits from exporting raw forest products and manufacturing high quality construction materials. They are relentlessly hounded by the company guards and mercenary agents and are oblige to pay for the company’s safe conduct pass,” he said.
“Being one of the few elite families in the country who are well-entrenched politically and economically, the Consunjis are enjoying government backing and unrestrained from getting full control of the resources in the Dulangan-Manobo ancestral lands. They rely on military power, hire private goons disguised as Special Civilian Armed Auxiliary elements under the 38th Infantry Battalion and organize their workers into a private army to augment the company’s forces. It is a company policy to pay their guards and armed workers who are able to eliminate anybody who stands in their way,” he added.
Aksasato said the DMCI also employs the “mercenary” troops under the 6th Infantry Division, the Regional Public Safety Battalion and Special Action Force, including the 7th and 8th Marine Battalion Landing Teams to protect their economic interests in the province.
There was no immediate statement or reactions from the M & S Company or DMCI, and even the military and police authorities over the allegations and accusations of Aksasato against them, but the NPA has been fighting for a separate state for many decades now. (Mindanao Examiner)
Like Us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindanaoexaminer
Follow Us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MindanaoExamine
Read Our News on: http://www.mindanaoexaminer.com/ and http://www.mindanaoexaminer.net/
Share The News
20
