The biggest case in the history of the puppet republic: Danding seizes lands in Isabela
Even as the issue of bourgeois comprador and Marcos and Estrada crony Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco's seizure of the coco levy funds and his maneuverings to control the San Miguel Corporation (SMC) reverberates nationwide, his aggressive and massive schemes to grab farmers' lands in Northern Luzon, Negros and Mindanao are gaining notoriety.
The biggest land grabbing and forcible land-use conversion case in the history of the puppet republic is now taking place in northwestern Isabela. According to correspondence reports from the Filomena Asuncion Front of the New People's Army in Isabela, this involves 150,000 hectares of land in the towns of Mallig, Quezon, Delfin Albano, Sto. Tomas. Sta. Maria, Quirino and other adjacent towns. Cojuangco has been perpetrating his land grabbing scheme through SMC which he currently controls and manages.
Cojuangco's massive seizure of lands has engendered resistance among thousands of people in the plains of northwestern Isabela. Thus, underground mass organizations as well as open organizations of peasants, women, youth, professionals and other multisectoral formations are fast expanding. Various forms of resistance to Danding's scheme are now advancing - armed and unarmed, legal and illegal.
Settler-farmers in the area have put up such resistance because their farmlands are now being gobbled up by SMC's gigantic cassava plantoation in the area known as the Mallig Plains. According to the SMC scheme, peasants in the Mallig Plains are supposed to set aside their usual products to become contract growers of cassava for SMC. In providing fertilizers, pesticides and other farm inputs on credit, SMC will serve as a big usurer-landlord to farmers contracted to plant cassava. The harvested cassava will be processed into flour in factories to be set up in Quezon town. SMC also plans to put up an animal feeds factory in the area. Farmers will be obliged to sell their harvests to SMC at a price dictated by the latter.
SMC's co-conspirator in this project is Faustino Dy Jr., congressman of the second district of Isabela, and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The local reactionary reactionary government has thrown its full support for the project by providing the needed infrastructure.
In a move to deceive the peasants and facilitate SMC's claim over the farmers' lands, the corporation has put up a bogus cooperative, the Valley Planters Development Corp. (VAPDECO) whose members are farmers under contract to plant cassava. It is the VAPDECO that is now recognized by DAR as the "agrarian reform" beneficiary in the lands encompassed by the project. In this manner, anyone who refuses to go along with Cojuangco's scheme will be pushed to the wall, go hungry if not outrightly evicted. Up to 100,000 settler-farmers who have long been tilling lands in this area will be victimized by this project.
Since SMC started the project last year, it has already grabbed up to 29,000 hectares, excluding about 3,000 hectares in Barangay Santiago, Quirino that have been bulldozed by SMC to set up a cassava nursery.
A company of the 45th IB has also been deployed to watch over the project's implementation.
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