‘Presence of Soldiers Frighten, Terrorize Residents’

From the Negros Daily Bulletin (Jan 31): ‘Presence of Soldiers Frighten, Terrorize Residents’

Farmers in Barangay Kamansi in Kabankalan City, are complaining about the operations of the 47th Infantry Battalion (IB) soldiers who, aside from staying in their houses, carry out foot patrols in the dead of night.

The soldiers are staying in the hacienda owned by landowner, Gene Sola, and primarily being by his son, John Paul Sola.

Word has spread that five of the farmers will allegedly be assassinated or eliminated after New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas carried out a lightning raid last week at the hacienda compound, seizing shotguns and hogtying security guards.

Earlier, the farmers had complained that whenever they venture out to work in their farms, they are allegedly being fired upon by black-uniformed guards.

After the NPA raid last week, the security guards who came from various towns and cities in Southern Negros were admonished to no longer come back.

With the security guards no longer there in the hacienda, soldiers in full battle gear have replaced them and allegedly sowed more fear and apprehensions among residents who are demanding that the landholdings be distributed to them.

The local Municipal Agrarian Reform Office (MARO) has promised to speed up the process of agrarian reform in the hacienda.

The military presence has not provided any assurance that there will be genuine peace and order in the village, because they are also trigger-happy, said the farmers’ spokesman who requested anonymity for security reasons.

Southern Negros had been the birthplace of the CPP-NPAs since years back.

Lots of encounters and firefights took place during the period the Marcos regime held sway.

The farmers’ spokesman in addition declared that if poverty and hunger are not solved, the unrests will go on.

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