KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews/07 June) — The communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) today owned up to the attack on Friday against an oil palm plantation in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat and accused the company of allegedly grabbing close to 1,000 hectares of land from the farmers there with help from the military.
“Landgrabbing has been facilitated by no less than the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines] in collusion with local chieftains…who has no conscience about giving up B’laan ancestral domain to big landlord compradors and foreign multinational entities,” Dencio Madrigal, spokesperson of the NPA’s Valentin Palamine Regional Operations Command, said in a statement.
Madrigal said they launched the attack to defend the farmers who continue to be driven out of their lands due to the aggressive expansion of oil palm plantations in the area.
“Oppression and misery of having been forcibly eased out of their lands is just too much for the farmers who cry out for justice,” he added.
The attack took place on June 4 in Barangay Sukob, Columbio town in Sultan Kudarat province, which resulted in the burning of a backhoe, multicab and other farm equipment of the plantation owned by Johnson Ng. The rebels also took away seven horses.
Ng, a Chinese national who is reportedly based in Davao City, supplies oil palm to Agumil Phils.[]
Inc and Kenram Industrial Development Inc, Madrigal said.
In Sukob, at least 150 families have been dispossessed of their lands and forced to find livelihood elsewhere, the NPA statement said.[]
