Duterte out to evict land-grabbers; attempt to get witness foiled

President Duterte has threatened to evict farmers who will illegally occupy lands, days after nine sugar farmers were massacred in a sugarcane field in Sagay City, Negros Occidential.

In a speech on Wednesday, the President said he was prepared to do anything to stop the unlawful takeover of farmlands.

“They took over [the land] from the original tenants. After the harvest, they go in and seize control using violence and intimidation, backed up by the communist rebels,” Mr. Duterte said, referring to the alleged perpetrators of the Sagay killing, during the national artist awards ceremony in Malacañang.

Witness to attack

“This has happened several times. Please do not do it again. The next time … I will have you evicted,” he added.

The President made the threat as the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) recommended placing a witness—a minor who survived the Saturday night attack—under the government’s Witness Protection Program.

Romeo Baldevarona, CHR Negros Occidental chief, said there was already an attempt by unidentified people to get the 14-year-old witness from the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the local police.

Baldevarona said the attempt was made on Wednesday by two elderly persons, accompanied by a lawyer and several other people, who pretended to be the minor’s grandparents.

Minor’s ‘grandparents’

He said the father of the traumatized teenage witness told the police that he did not know the persons who tried to pass themselves off as the minor’s grandparents.

The National Federation of Sugarcane Workers alleged on Wednesday that the minor was arrested by police, a claim disputed by Senior Supt. Rodolfo Castil Jr., the provincial police director.

The President acknowledged that poor farmers needed land of their own but cautioned them against following in the footsteps of Kadamay, an urban poor group that occupied a housing project in Bulacan.

“I know you are poor, I know that you want land, I know you are suffering, I know that you are in agony … But if that’s your style, you create disorder.”

Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. has insisted that the attack was the handiwork of communist rebels.