KMP demands to disarm, arrest Lapanday guards

Unarmed banana farmers face masked and black-shirted armed guards of the Lapanday Food Corp. on Dec. 9, 2016. The farmers said 31 shots were fired by the guards to scare away farmers trying to occupy lands awarded to them under the government’s agrarian reform program. Nobody was hurt in that encounter. But on Dec. 12, 2016, seven farmers were shot and wounded by the Lapanday guards. (PHOTO RELEASE OF THE UNYONG NG MGA MANGGAGAWA SA AGRIKULTURA)

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Friday called for justice in the shooting at Lapanday Foods Corporation in Tagum City that wounded nine farm workers from the Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Inc. (MARBAI).

MARBAI farm workers last December 9 decided to inaugurate a mass action and militant assertion to reclaim the 145 hectares of land granted to them by the government in 1996 but was grabbed by Lapanday.

READ: 7 wounded as guards shoot farmers in banana plantation

In a statement, Antonio Flores, KMP’s secretary general, demanded the immediate disarming and arrest of all involved security guards in the shootings to ensure the safety of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) and farm workers.

“We also demand that the Lapanday management, the Lorenzo family, the local police and LGU (local government unit) be held accountable for the violence and injustice against farmers,” he added.

“The continuing absence of a genuine land reform would inevitably compel tillers and farm workers to launch more militant actions to assert their moral and historical claim to the lands.”

He also said that as long as the armed security guards are inside the banana plantation, there is imminent threat to the life of the farm workers.

KMP, Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, KARAPATAN, and local organizations from Southern Mindanao Region initiated a national fact finding and solidarity mission (NFFSM) on the issue and found several rights violations committed against the farm workers of MARBAI.

Reynante Mantos, chairperson of the Hugpong sa mga Mang-uuma sa Compostela, provincial chapter of KMP said that the security guards “intended to kill the farm workers even without any provocation.”

Santos also said that the security guards directly pointed their shotguns at the ARBs, documented accounts reveal.

Despite the initial findings of the NFFSM showing that security guards, employed by ACDISA security agency, fired shotguns from December 9 to 14, the Tagum City police still refused to arrest the security guards.

The said indiscriminate shooting on December 12 and December 14 resulted in the wounding of nine farm workers, two of whom are still recovering at the Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum City. RAM/rga

READ: 3 farmers in Tagum wounded in latest attack in disputed land