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
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.
http://www.mindanaoexaminer.net/2015/03/rebels-own-up-raid-on-logging-firm-in.html
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