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ILOILO City – A few hours before boarding their ship bound for Manila last week, Panay Island’s delegates to the “Lakbayan ng Visayas” mass action in the nation’s capital held a brief picket in Camp Delgado to denounce what they claimed was the continuing deployment of police forces in peasant and indigenous communities.
The delegation, composed mainly of farmers and indigenous peoples, came from the provinces of Aklan, Capiz and Iloilo that were also hit hard by super typhoon “Yolanda” in November 2013.
“The deployment of police forces in our areas contribute to our already dire situation. We cannot farm and live peacefully because the Regional Mobile Group there intimidates and spreads fear among the people that we are communist rebels. This is totally untrue and baseless,” said Melchor Asuparado, a peasant leader from Capiz.
Asupardo was referring to the 585 hectares Bungsuan stock farm which the farmers are fighting for since 1980s. The stock farm was formerly under the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture and was intended for cattle raising and production.
The struggle of the farmers to claim the land, which was originally intended for farming, paid off when they were awarded with 465 hectares in the early 1990s.
This October, however, they claimed that around 40 combined forces of the 47th, 61st, 14th and 79th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army stationed in vacant houses in the stock farm.
“The President already declared a unilateral ceasefire. The deployment clearly violates his declaration. The police should immediately pull out their forces from our community and leave us in peace,” Asupardo said.
“The police should cooperate with and follow the orders of the President. They should provide a conducive climate for the peace process to prosper which are now being carried out between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP),” added Asupardo.
The Lakbayanistas’ cited another example – the Jalaur mega dam in Calinog, Iloilo.
“We have been subject of surveillance and harassment because of our strong opposition. That is why we are bringing this to the attention of the President. These projects only create more problems instead of solutions to us,” said Remia Castor of the Tumandok organization.
The organization claimed the mega dam will submerge their communities, destroy their cultural sites and practices.
Special Action Forces are currently deployed in barangays Agcalaga and Alibunan in Calinog.
“They roam around, intimidate and instill fear to people especially those opposing the project,” Castor added./PN
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