NPA rebels to continue anti-biofuels campaign
11/01/2008 | 07:52 AM
MANILA, Philippines - The communist New People's Army (NPA) in Negros vowed Saturday to sustain its campaign against biofuels and to raid plantations dedicated to jathropa, a source of biofuel.
NPA Southeastern Negros spokesman Dom Pantaleon said the NPA will implement more "preventive measures" against private agri-business corporations for aggravating food supply problem by planting non-food crops.
In an article on the Communist Party of the Philippines website, he cited the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corporation (TVADC) as causing worsening food supply problem and heightening military abuses in southeast Negros.
He said the NPA recently conducted another "punitive action" against the TVADC biofuels company mainly based in the village of Casalaan, Siaton, Oriental Negros.
Pantaleon said an NPA team last Oct. 3 was ordered to confiscate and burn two TVADC-owned tractors in Sitio Tamlang, Talalak village in Sta. Catalina town.
No one was harmed in the incident, he added.
"It was the second such operation in as many months by the Red army to protect upland peasants from the intrusive and harmful biofuels company co-owned by the family of ex-Congressman Herminio Teves and their Korean business partners. Last September 9, a separate NPA team seized and burned three tractors owned by the same company in sityo Cuadra, barangay Mantikil, in Sta. Catalina town," the NPA said.
Pantaleon added the NPA will continue implementing similar orders for punitive actions to block the widespread growing of jathropa and cassava in and around the vast Sta. Catalina-Siaton-Valencia-Pamplona border villages of Oriental Negros.
He said the NPA will also impose armed punitive actions against the Army's 302nd Brigade for "providing protection and even colluding with TVADC in forcing ordinary farmers to plant jatrhopa and cassava, instead of their traditional food crops like upland rice and corn."
Pantaleon said the mercenary AFP has become the biofuels campaign's most visible "errand boys" for the agri-business company and the Teves family in southeast Negros. - GMANews.TV
NPA Southeastern Negros spokesman Dom Pantaleon said the NPA will implement more "preventive measures" against private agri-business corporations for aggravating food supply problem by planting non-food crops.
In an article on the Communist Party of the Philippines website, he cited the Tamlang Valley Agricultural Development Corporation (TVADC) as causing worsening food supply problem and heightening military abuses in southeast Negros.
He said the NPA recently conducted another "punitive action" against the TVADC biofuels company mainly based in the village of Casalaan, Siaton, Oriental Negros.
Pantaleon said an NPA team last Oct. 3 was ordered to confiscate and burn two TVADC-owned tractors in Sitio Tamlang, Talalak village in Sta. Catalina town.
No one was harmed in the incident, he added.
"It was the second such operation in as many months by the Red army to protect upland peasants from the intrusive and harmful biofuels company co-owned by the family of ex-Congressman Herminio Teves and their Korean business partners. Last September 9, a separate NPA team seized and burned three tractors owned by the same company in sityo Cuadra, barangay Mantikil, in Sta. Catalina town," the NPA said.
Pantaleon added the NPA will continue implementing similar orders for punitive actions to block the widespread growing of jathropa and cassava in and around the vast Sta. Catalina-Siaton-Valencia-Pamplona border villages of Oriental Negros.
He said the NPA will also impose armed punitive actions against the Army's 302nd Brigade for "providing protection and even colluding with TVADC in forcing ordinary farmers to plant jatrhopa and cassava, instead of their traditional food crops like upland rice and corn."
Pantaleon said the mercenary AFP has become the biofuels campaign's most visible "errand boys" for the agri-business company and the Teves family in southeast Negros. - GMANews.TV
