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Bukidnon NPA raid was all about money
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo
The Philippine Star 2013-02-28
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Trust our Reds to mouth noble causes, like helping the poor people, when in truth they’re really just helping themselves. Take the case of the February 19 NPA (New People’s Army) surprise raid on the Del Monte and Dole plantations in Bukidnon.
“The punitive attacks against the multinational plantations have long been demanded by the indigenous people and peasant masses in Bukidnon and other parts of Mindanao whose ancestral lands have been seized, plundered, despoiled and poisoned by big foreign multinational corporations,” was how NDF (National Democratic Front) Mindanao spokesperson Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos justified their twin attacks.
Madlos further stated: “This is one way of delivering justice to the 2,000 people who died in the floods.” He added: “We have been calling on the owners and operators of these plantations to reorient their businesses and stop the expansion of their plantations in Mindanao. These plantations have caused grave damage to the environment.”
If you didn’t know what bovine ordure meant and heard it, chances are it will stir in your mind the impression of something French, wholesome and appetizing. It simply means bullshit — and that’s what the NPA-NDF pronouncement justifying their raid is all about. It’s actually a demonstration to conceal their sagging fortunes here.
The Del Monte and Dole plantations were procured, not seized. These lands were made very productive, not despoiled as the NPA claimed. These lands have been producing globally patronized pineapples for more than 4 decades so it’s a lie to say that these lands were poisoned. Poisoned land would cease to be productive.
In the case of De Monte, they have been operating in Bukidnon for nearly 9 decades and they employ over 20,000 people from 10 nearby municipalities. My grandfather, Ian Trotter-Macgregor, was the finance officer of the Del Monte pioneers and he was responsible for buying the lands where the plantation is located. If the NPA were really for the people, why would they want to disrupt a company like Del Monte?
The reason for the raid was not an undertaking for the people but an undertaking to bolster their sagging ranks and yes — to replenish their sagging finances. At the height of the NPA insurgency, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, they explored possibilities of expanding in the Manolo Fortich area of Bukidnon where Del Monte is located. They were not able to get to first base because the people there were gainfully employed and had no reason to join the insurgency. Every time they were seen in the area, the people would immediately notify the authorities.
A reliable source informed me that the Bukidnon raid was meant to expand NPA “revolutionary” tax collections to the Del Monte and Dole plantations. It appears that the closure of many mining operations for failing to comply with regulations was a big depletion of fund sources for the NPA. They simply cannot collect taxes from mining operations that have shut down and are no longer generating revenues.
Per my source, the NPA Bukidnon raid had two objectives. The first was to project that the sagging communist insurgency had been growing. The second was to seek new sources for collecting “revolutionary” taxes, as they call extortion.
With economic conditions improving under the President Benigno S. Aquino III (P-Noy) administration, with a lot of construction and development happening all over — the social conditions that drive people to join the insurgency are being addressed. It’s no surprise that the most rabid critics of P-Noy have been the front organizations of the Left.
The Reds love presidents like Ferdinand Marcos and hate presidents like Cory and her son P-Noy. That’s why from Day 1 of the P-Noy administration, the Reds and their many front organizations have been the most rabid barkers and critics. They have been overly active lately trying to project the opposite of what P-Noy has accomplished. They gain no adherents because people know that what they’re trying to project isn’t true.
That raid on the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) warehouse last February 26 by radicals posing as “hungry” and “angry” typhoon victims is a clear demonstration of what the Reds are trying to project. Sec. Dinky Soliman correctly placed the lightning theft in the right perspective when she questioned on ANC Francis Morales, a leader of the radicals, why their so-called “hungry” and “angry” typhoon victims spent their money going to Davao when they should have fed themselves. Soliman told Morales not to use the relief goods as a political tool.
Morales justified their lightning theft by saying that it wasn’t a ransacking of the DSWD warehouse but a confiscation of what’s rightfully theirs. That’s clearly Red agitprop designed to condition the minds of the poor to forcibly get from the rich what they need. This is the essence of class warfare. Start attacking the rich in Forbes Park and Dasmarinas Village to get what you need, is what they’re promoting.
This is where we should appreciate our poor people. Showbiz folks who enter politics may mesmerize them but they never bought the Red line promoting class warfare. Our poor know what’s right and what’s wrong.
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Shakespeare: “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
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