Negros Farmers Stand by Story, Bare More Harrowing Facts of PNOC Project

Farmer leaders in Mailum, Bago City this weekend stood by their story that the government-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) had duped them into being relocated and that the company had reneged on its promise to pay damages to property in full.  Leaders of a fact-finding mission that hiked to Mt. Kanlaon over a week ago to investigate the farmers’ grievances also affirmed their findings. 

BY Karl Ombion and Edgar Cadagat
Bulatlat.com/Cobra-Ans
   

A village in Mt. Kanlaon. Shrouded in mist and steam, Rig 10 of the Philippine National Oil Corporation is seen here in sitio Pataan, barangay Mailum, Bago City. The PNOC project, which is funded by the Japan Bank of International Commerce, is feared to dislocate thousands of families in Pataan and nearby communities. Photo by Archie Rey A. Alipalo

BACOLOD CITY – Farmer leaders in Mailum, Bago City this weekend stood by their story that the government-owned Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) had duped them into being relocated and that the company had reneged on its promise to pay damages to property in full. 

Leaders of a fact-finding mission that hiked to Mt. Kanlaon over a week ago to investigate the farmers’ grievances also affirmed their findings.  

PNOC, with the help of Japanese assistance, is building a geothermal plant at the foot of Mt. Kanlaon - an area within the forest reservation. Farmers have also complained that the project has only brought threats to threats to environment including toxic fumes coming from the project site. 

Richard Sarrosa, secretary general of the KMP-Negros, and leader of the fact finding mission to the PNOC, brushed aside the accusations of PNOC that it did not have a third party representation. He also dismissed the challenge of the PNOC to do another audit according to DENR standards saying that “we do not need to go into DENR technical procedures as facts can not be obscured by such, no matter from which angle you look at them.” 

Sarrosa added that PNOC has the gall to call for another audit only after it has cleaned its tailing pond. “We have proofs of how such clean-up went before this mission,” he said.  

Besides, he said, the issue is not whether the KMP’s FFM has a third party representation or not. “The issue here is the massive dislocation faced by the residents, the unfair labor practices being suffered by the workers, the unabated pollution that has diminished the fish supply in the rivers,” he said. 

On the allegations of the barangay captain that he (Sarrosa) is a Cojuangco employee-turned RPA, then NPA, Sarrosa said, “First of all, I am not a collaborator of Cojuangco. On the contrary, I was a victim of land-grabbing by Cojuangco. Second, I am a member of a militant legal peasant organization. Third, I was born a peasant and I have never been a member of any armed movement – whether the RPA or otherwise,” he said. 

All these – the smear campaign, the harassments and threats – are just a ploy of PNOC and its supporters to skirt the issue and to cover-up the snowballing dissent against the government firm, he said. 

He further slammed the use of the military – one of whose soldiers fired a shot during the FFM last week to scare away the participants – to protect the interests of the JBIC and PNOC. 

“Instead of cleaning up their acts and serving the people, the military has instead trained its guns on persons and organizations who are bucking the anti-people policies of the government,” he added.  

Harassments after fact-finding 

Are they hiding something? This question arose when it was learned that no less than the barangay captain of Mailum, Bago told some residents that they would hire people to beat up members of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas who would “make a mistake” of turning up in their village for another fact-finding mission or protest action. 

Albert Garcia, one of the leaders of the Mailum United Farmers Association, told Bulatlat.com/Courier that Mailum village chief Ruben Torres threatened to hire goons to beat up anybody, especially those from the KMP, who would gather in the area for whatever purpose. 

Garcia said that aside from the alarming threats of physical harm, members of the MUFA received death threats, mostly from paramilitary men and some members of the 11th Infantry Battalion. 

“They want the MUFA to disband… they have also been accusing us as members of the New People’s Army just because the KMP is helping us.  Let me make it clear, though, that we were the ones who went to the KMP, not the other way around.  The government refused to help us, so we turned to the KMP for help,” he said. 

Members of the Citizens’ Armed Forces Geographical Unit threatened to have the members arrested or even killed. 

“Ipa-Sparrow kuno nila kami.  Maayo, eh, kay may Sparrow na gali ang military (They said that they’d have us killed by the Sparrow Unit.  Great, now the military has a Sparrow unit),” he said. 

Joemarie Batoon, another member of MUFA, recounted that a certain Itok Sumayang, a government militiaman, told his wife to warn her husband (Batoon) against joining the group.  Or else, he would get himself shot. 

Another CAFGU also approached Batoon and tried to convince him to stay away from the group and support the side of the authorities instead. 

Batoon is now fearing for his life.  “They might make do of their threats against me. They could easily do that, as my home is quite isolated.” 

The efforts that the CAFGUs are going through to silence dissent against the PNOC is quite expected. The residents said that the PNOC is giving each CAFGU member P800. 

But the worst smear campaign was apparently reserved for KMP spokesman Richard Sarrosa, whom the CAFGU, the military and even an employee of the Municipal Agrarian Reform Office alternately called a “communist, an opportunist and a member of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army.” 

“They claimed that we should not be listening to Richard, because he was only in it for the money.  They said that he was just good at milking peasants out of their money,” he said.   

There were even claims that he was one of the men of businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr.   

More threats  

On Saturday, the farmers and settlers came all the way from the upland village of Mailum, Bago to Bacolod to clear things up, especially when they heard the things that the Philippine National Oil Company has been saying to the media here.  

“The PNOC keeps on saying that we (the employees) in the area do not have a problem. Those who are complaining, they said, were from the outside, apparently referring to the KMP (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) who helped by organizing the fact-finding mission,” Jerry Eben, one of the employees of the PNOC and resident of Sitio Pataan, Mailum said.  

Eben was with four others – peasant leader Albert Garcia, Edgardo Gemongala, Nenita Zamora, Joemarie Batoon – to clarify the claims of the PNOC officials that all their employees are well taken care of. 

“They even claim that the employees can easily approach them,” Zamora, whose husband was a contractual employee of the PNOC for close to eight years now, said as she scoffed at the claims of the firm because the fact, according to the employees, is further from the truth. 

The five talked of job insecurity, threats and lies—all of which seemed to have worsened soon after the fact-finding team of the KMP left the area.  

Worse, the employees of PNOC found themselves turned down by radio stations they approached - for what reasons, they did not know. 

For starters, more than a hundred workers are in danger of losing jobs, mainly because a new placement  agency is taking over the void that would soon be left by the Janitorial Placement Agency. 

Worse, the new placement agency will be hiring workers as contractuals thus hardly improving the lot of the workers when they were handled by the JPA. 

In fact, Eben said that the Pataan barangay chief, Ruben Torres, was practically given the prerogative to determine whom the PNOC wanted to hire or turn down. “The screening of applicants would be under him,” he said. “Naturally, they expect that the village chief would be prioritizing his own people.” 

Eben and the rest of the hundred-plus workers under the JPA would find themselves jobless this October when their contracts expire. “We don’t know if we would be re-hired,” he said. 

Lies, hollow promises 

Zamora, on the other hand, told Bulatlat.com/ Courier that she along with scores others who initially welcomed the operation of the PNOC were duped into believing that their lives would improve with the entry of the firm. 

“We were promised everything,” she said. “They promised that they would provide some mode of transportation for us as well as electricity. They claimed that the residents in the area would be prioritized during employment, so that each family would have at least a member that’s working regularly in the PNOC.” 

The promises proved to be hollow, she said. 

Zamora has every right to complain. Her husband has been working for the PNOC since 1994 as a contractual worker. He is still a contractual worker – so much for the promise of the PNOC to “regularize” at least one member per family. 

Military arrest? 

But the gripes of the workers concern not just labor problems. It seems, they said, the military is also doing its best to protect the interests of the PNOC and the JBIC which is funding the project. 

Edgardo Gemongala, one of the poor farmers bound to be dislocated, said that the PNOC offered him P.5M for his crop damages, although he does not have any assurance that the land he used to till would be replaced. The initial computation of his crop damages was however pegged at P1M. Gemongala, not wanting to lose his sole means of livelihood, initially bucked the offer, knowing all too well that he is getting the raw end of the deal.  

The PNOC upheld the offer plus a regular status in the firm, as long as he keeps his mouth shut and not tell anybody that he was the only one offered the job. 

To make sure that Gemongala could not refuse the offer, PNOC “convinced” him that there is nothing he could do. If he refused, he was told, PNOC would take his land anyway and that they have 10 lawyers to make sure that happens. 

But what bothered him most, he said, was the threat of military arrest on anybody who refused to budge in. Against his own wish, Gemongala was forced to accept the offer. Bulatlat.com

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