Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr. (File photo by GERMELINA LACORTE/Inquirer Mindanao
Davao del Norte First District Rep. Antonio Floirendo Jr. on Monday said the House inquiry into the controversy surrounding the Tagum Agricultural Development Corp. (Tadeco) “has hit a blank wall.”
The House Committee on Justice and Comittee on Good Governance and Accountability are conducting an inquiry over the 14-year joint venture agreement.
In a statement, Floirendo said that “for hitting a blank wall” his family has been accused of “poll manipulation, preventing people from entering the Dapecol [Davao Penal Colony], a public land, and pursuing claims that the Dapecol lands were not properly surveyed.”
The House committees questioned Tadeco’s joint venture agreement with the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) for the use of the penal colony as a banana plantation.
The agreeement was first entered into in 1969 and extended for another 25 years in 2003, when Floirendo was serving his second term as Davao del Norte representative.
“Has the Tadeco-Dapecol public inquiry gone so low that it has become possible to speculate that all inmates in the prison colony will be future resource persons in the House?” Floirendo lamented.
“Going by what the House has been doing so far, there’s no arguing the inquiry on the Tadeco-Dapecol accord will continue, chiefly to feed the personal interest of certain individuals who are interested in taking over the banana industry,” he added. /atm