Palawan PNP claimed that their investigation pointed to the likelihood that the Bricktree hired JMV services, which allegedly is the security agency providing guards in Mariahangin. The information was retrieved from the transcript of a meeting of Mariahangin residents with government agencies and confirmed by residents present in the dialogue.
Tags: San Miguel Corporation (SMC)
Molbog IPs stage 9-day hunger strike, DAR secretary no show
“[Secretary] Estrella, we are pleading to you. Please have mercy on us. The attacks against us have gone too far and our human rights are being violated. We can no longer go to school because of what San Miguel Corporation (SMC) is doing to us. Many young people among us still want to study, but I am one of those who had to stop because we can no longer live in peace there,” Rustene Pelayo Leoncio said in Filipino.
Residents expose resettlement program offered by SMC amid denial of involvement
Residents said that in 2023, SMC initially presented a “resettlement program” for Mariahangin families, offering money amounting to P75,000 with land or P100,000 if without land. Recently, the offer has increased to P400,000 per family to urge them to vacate their ancestral lands.
DAR urged to give land coverage back to the Molbog people
In 2023, DAR revoked the NOC of the 10,821 hectares of land of the indigenous peoples in Bugsuk, Palawan which was initially issued in 2014. Residents said that this decision by DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III prompted escalated harassment and intimidation in their community in Sitio Mariahangin.
IP community prevents PNP, alleged SMC elements from entering ancestral land
“We cannot sleep well these days because we fear that they will enter the community. Our husbands have skipped work and our livelihoods have been paralyzed just so we can defend our ancestral land from their attempts to seize it. Our children sometimes do not have anything to eat.”
Defending rivers and Manila Bay against pollution, privatization
“If anyone had rights over the Manila Bay, it is the Filipino people, and if it is to serve any purpose, it should be for the benefit of the general population, and not an elite few.”
‘Direct hit’ Bulacan fisherfolk most affected, least consulted on SMC reclamation
What is common in the stories of the residents in various coastal sitios of Bulacan is that the “news” about their impending displacement is coming to them in trickles of information packaged in a threat.
Bulacan fisherfolk, women want genuine, inclusive Manila Bay rehabilitation
While the government is riding on the popular call for cleanup of Manila Bay, harnessing free labor of volunteers for fishing out thrash in Manila Bay, it is, on the other hand, disproportionately blaming the poor and seeking their demolition in favor of reclamation plans and other real estate development.
Cutting of mangroves result in heavier floods in Taliptip
Unlike in past typhoons, the flood was higher and stayed longer, and the surges hit stronger, carrying off the sand at the top of the soil.
‘SMC airport project to worsen flooding, displace families in Bulacan’
“The birds’ habitat, the people’s source of livelihood and protection from storm surges are being turned into just another concrete jungle for the profit of the very few.”
Save Taliptip
That P735.6-billion reclamation budget from SMC seemed to have been enough for NEDA to ignore the thousands of people to be displaced and the ecologically critical vegetation to be damaged.