NPA owns haciendas in Negros too — Phl Army

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — The Philippine Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade reported on Friday that the Komiteng Rehiyonal-Negros is maintaining about 22 communal farms in three upland sitios of Barangay Malasibog in Escalante City, Negros Occidental, to support its armed group, the New People’s Army.

This validates previous reports that KR-Negros maintains about 58 haciendas and farmlands in Negros island, which are being managed by civil society people’s organizations linked to it, said Captain Ruel Lllanes, spokesperson of the 303rd IBde.

During a monthly meeting with soldiers deployed to conduct Community Support Programs (CSP), Llanes said they reported that the farmers were obliged to pay membership fees and provide personnel during mass mobilizations.

“Moreover, the camp-outs in land cultivation areas (LCAs) were used for CPP-NPA-NDF related activities such as meetings, education and trainings of masses and consolidation area of logistics and resources in support to the armed group (NPA)”, Llanes said.

Citing a source he would not reveal, Llanes added that farmers have been paying P2,500 in monthly amortization for their farms, with P1,147.54 being paid by the overseer to Land Bank of the Philippines, and the remaining amount being utilized to support the armed group. He also revealed their source and presented a certified receipt from LBP to support the claims.

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) slammed the 303rd IBde for claiming that agricultural workers and farmers who are asserting their rights to their lands through LCA in Negros Occidental, are “rebels.”

John Butch Milton Losande, UMA secretary general, said the National Federation of Sugarcane Workers and the Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas launched the LCA or “bungkalan” campaign, especially among sugar workers who have to endure the “tiempo muerto” (dead season) that lasts for up to five months.

As NFSW has stated quite clearly, Losande said that the goal in setting up land cultivation areas is to ward off the inevitable hunger brought by the dead season on properties covered by agrarian reform but which remain undistributed and idle, planting these with vegetables, banana, corn and root crops to feed their families.

The LCA, formerly known as land take over (LTO), or Agaw Lupa, is a land occupation concept patterned on Hacienda Luisita, where agrarian reform issues are being manipulated, to advance the CPP-NPA “agrarian reform revolution,” Lllanes said.

Brigadier General Eliezer Losañes, 303rd IBde commander, in a statement, claimed that the communal farm is among the sources of income to support the financial and logistical needs of the communist rebels. Unfortunately, only those high ranking CPP officials and leaders of left-leaning CSOs are benefitting from the income of the land-grabbed farms, Losañes said.

But he also said the common workers are deceived by sweet talk and are being pushed to continue fighting for the CPP-NPA’s fake agrarian revolution.

Losañes reiterated his appeal to rightful owners of land-grabbed farms to file charges in court against the perpetrators, and for the Departments of Agrarian Reform as well as DILG to extend help to land owners and rightful beneficiaries, who are victims of injustices by the CPP-NPA in Negros island. (FREEMAN)