By JOHN RIZLE L. SALIGUMBA
Davao Today
“There is no product to export (once) we’ll be flooded with (ASEAN products); all the farmers will be jobless here,” said Phil Export XI executive director Conrado T. Hernaez in a press conference at Marco Polo Hotel Wednesday.
Usurious schemes and failure of the government to support farmers bury them in a vicious debt cycle. Farmers are left fending for themselves.
By MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN
DAVAO CITY (davaotoday.com) — A farmer last seen beaten and forcibly taken allegedly by soldiers on July 4 is missing, according to the human rights group Karapatan.
Witnesses saw Alvin Lopez, 25, a farmer and resident of sitio Maot, Barangay San Jose in Monkayo town of Compostela Valley Province hogtied, and forced into a military vehicle during a military operation. Alvin’s mother, Erlinda, 46, sought Karapatan’s help to locate his son. She filed a complaint Tuesday before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in the region against the military’s 26th Infantry Battalion based in the area. Read on.
Arroyo: Core of RP problems by Patricio P. Diaz/MindaNews GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / June 26) The President herself should…
By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat MANILA (June 14, 2009) – It seemed incongruous, the sight of farmers marching toward Mendiola,…
Manila — A new book on landcare was launched by Australian ambassador Rod Smith, marking a new era for the…
Farmers groups in Davao are dismayed over the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) until December 31. They’re calling instead for the approval of the “Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill” that seeks to implement free distribution of lands to farmers and lift the heavy amortization rates shouldered by CARP beneficiaries. It also seeks to promote cooperatives and other mutual-aid techniques, which the KMP believes will raise the productivity and the standard of living of farmers, eventually “laying the foundation for national industrialization.”
On that early morning of May 15 this year, Celso Pojas, 45, was sipping a cup of coffee inside the Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KMP) office in Bugac, Maa when he got up, told a colleague he had to buy few cigarette sticks and went outside.
Nobody had an inkling it was to be their last time to talk to him.
As the secretary- general of Farmers’s Association of Davao City (FADC), Pojas was preparing to go to Compostela town as part of the support groups to attend to hundreds of Lumads, who were fleeing their homes in Monkayo and Compostela because of military operations there.
