NDF-Philippines ON PRESIDENT AQUINO’S MINING POLICY

Press Statement

09 July 2012

 

THE RAPID EXPANSION OF MINING AND PLANTATIONS OWNED BY IMPERIALISTS AND THE RULING CLASS MEANS CALAMITIES AND WAR IN MINDANAO

Military operations in Mindanao have escalated and have become more extensive with the aim to thwart the ever growing and widespread people’s protest against destructive mining operations and plantations owned by imperialists, the big comprador bourgeois and big landlords.  After having ravaged the environment by way of wanton logging, imperialists and the local ruling clique insidiously intend to inflict even greater devastation to the environment; and, to deprive, oppress and exploit further the Lumads, Moro, peasants and workers in order to satiate their greed for superprofit.

In Far Southern Mindanao, the opposition of the B’laan and Moro peoples, the religious, peasants and irrigators’ cooperatives, the local government, and the people in general against Xstrata-SMI — the largest gold mining operation in Southeast Asia, covering 90,000 hectares in the quadri-boundary of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, Davao del Sur and Saranggani, corpulent with a capitalization of US$5.9 billion — has gained strength and broadened.  Suffering from blatant and relentless violations by the Xstrata-SMI against their ancestral domain, the B’laan Lumads have been pushed to wage a “Red Pangayaw” (Tribal War) against Xstrata-SMI, as well as against the security guards, Army, CAFGU and PNP protecting the company.  On June 20, their ambush resulted in the demise of Chief Security Ret. Police Supt. Villamindo Hectin and of PO2 Rey Tonzo, and the wounding of SPO1 Wenefredo Sengonnigue and PO1 Glen Beltran.  In the second ambush that took place the same day in Makak, Brgy. Kiblawan, North Cotabato, one official of the 1002nd Brigade and 2 CAFGUs were wounded.

These were followed by an ambush on June 26 launched by the B’laan in Kimlawis, Kiblawan, where PO Yolly Jean Singkolan was killed in the course of combat.   In 1995, the Western Mining Company, the first to bring large-scale mining to Tampakan, was compelled to abandon their operations when the B’laan Lumads waged a “Revolutionary Pangayaw” against the company. In January of 2008, the NPA dismantled the administration office of the Xstrata-SMI in Tampakan, South Cotabato, and in the following year, the NPA raided the Tampakan PNP protecting the company.

In the Southern Mindanao Region, where numerous imperialist mining companies operate such as the Russell Mines and Minerals, Apex Mining Corp. and Philco, the people’s protest against large-scale mining is also strong and wide.  In the past, small-scale miners’ associations launched, in several occasions, protest actions against an imperialist mining company which, together with its local partners, aimed to grab from the small-scale miners the very source of gold in Diwalwal, Monkayo, Compostela Valley.  There were also several instances in the region where the NPA sanctioned highly destructive mining operations as well as militarily targeted units of the AFP, CAFGU, PNP and other security forces actively protecting large-scale mining companies.

In North Central Mindanao, the opposition of Lumad peoples, especially the Manobos and the Matigsalogs, together with the peasants, church, LGU and other sectors against the mining operations of Indophil in Quezon and in San Fernando, Bukidnon is fast gaining ground; that is precisely why the 8th IB continues with its intensified military operations in the said area.   Currently, in the interest of mining companies, the 8th IB has forcibly placed under hamlet more than 100 peasant and Lumad families in Sitio Sikayab, Brgy. Bunacao, San Fernando, Bukidnon.  There is also strong people’s protest against the expansion of the Dolefil, DelMonte and Sumifru plantations, in whose areas the military, every now and then, conducts combat operations in order to secure these companies’ interests.  On the other hand, within two weeks alone, the NPA in the region has launched 5 tactical offensives against operating troops of the AFP, CAFGU and PNP.  One of these was the ambush conducted by the NPA on June 17 against operating 8th IB troops in Sikayab, Bunacao, San Fernando, Bukidnon, where 9 army personnel were killed-in-action (KIA) and 2 others wounded; the NPA sustained no casualty.

In Western Mindanao,  there is widespread opposition among the Subanen and Moro peoples, peasants and workers, church and the middle forces against  military operations conducted by the Tabak Division of the Army aimed at crushing people’s dissent against the ever-rising number of mining sites and operations of the Toronto Venture Inc. (TVI) in the entire region.  If one recalls, more than 400 families were forced to evacuate their ancestral lands because of TVI and the ruthless military operations that ensued to protect it in Buug, Zamboanga del Sur.  In order to defend the people’s human rights and general wellbeing, the NPA launched tactical offensives against TVI as well as against units of the AFP-PNP-CAFGU protecting it, such as the ambush on February 2012 that hit elements of the army intelligence group operating on the behest of TVI. The imposition of the local government to allow TVI mining operations on Subanen ancestral lands is one of the bases the NPA raided on April 9 the PNP station in Tigbao, Zamboanga del Sur.

In Caraga, where the number of mining companies is most concentrated, a stronger and more far-reaching opposition led by the Lumads, church and local government groups and a broad range of people’s aggrupation against large-scale mining’s destructive effects, as well as against the ever-expanding Dolefil, Del Monte and Sumifru plantations, is at present gaining unprecedented groundswell.  Because of this, the military operations of various troop units from the 4th ID PA continue almost unabated, which has already resulted in massive evacuations and in the perpetration of brutal human rights violations against the people.  On the other hand, the NPA has already simultaneously sanctioned three giant mining companies in Claver, Surigao del Norte on October 3, 2011.  In the last two weeks alone, the NPA was able to launch 10 military actions against enemy troops protecting these mining companies and plantations.  One of these was the NPA attack on June 27 in Puog, Tandag City, against 29th IB troops, where 2Lt. Martinez was killed, and 2Lt. Gomez and Cpl. Cabahis were wounded.  The NPA was able to seize one M16 rifle.

And recently on July 6, the NPA in NEMR successfully sanctioned the VPO Mines, Inc. for maintaining a disproportionately large number of armed goons (with more than 60 high-powered rifles and other weapons) while wantonly operating in Brgy. Bayugan III, Rosario, Agusan del Sur. The NPA was able to confiscate 30 firearms from the company, which include the following: 13 HPRs (7 M16s, 2 M4 Carbine arm-a-lite rifles, 1 M203, 2 M14, 1 AK-47), 9 shotguns, 6 .45 Cal pistols, 2 .9mm-KG, and several ammunition.

In view of these events, the NDFP in Mindanao calls upon the Lumad and Moro peoples, peasants and workers, religious and other sectors to further strengthen their unity and their courage to oppose the interests of imperialist mines and plantations, which are exceedingly damaging to Mindanao, to its people and to the environment.  We call upon the units of the NPA in Mindanao to be ever more daring in their defense of people’s interests against the greed and rapacity of the local ruling classes and their imperialist master.

 

Ka Oris
Spokesperson
NDFP-Mindanao

UPHOLD AND PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF FILIPINO CHILDREN

STATEMENT

29 June 2012

The NDFP-Mindanao fully affirms the NDFP Declaration and Program of Action for the Rights, Protection and Welfare of Children. We reiterate our commitment to defend and promote the rights, interests and welfare of Filipino children, which are fully integrated into the social program of the people’s democratic revolution with a socialist perspective.  Ensuring the future of our children is one fundamental reason why we are waging a people’s war.  We want to create a society where all children can be provided the basic necessities like education, food, clothing, a home, and all the opportunities needed to make a happy, balanced childhood.
But in Mindanao, being part of the Philippine semi-feudal, semi-colonial system, children’s rights are systematically violated, and they carry the heaviest burden of social exploitation and oppression. Millions of them are unschooled and found in dreadful working conditions in both rural and urban areas in the island. They can be seen in the vast rice and cornfields, in large-scale plantations, such as in Dolefil, Del Monte and the sugar-cane fields of Bukidnon, in hundreds of tunnels, panning and other mining areas, and in logging concessions as low-waged or unpaid laborers. School-aged children are also heavily exploited in the landing areas and piers as porters, small vendors, and scavengers in the urban centers.  In 2009, the GPH conservatively estimated the number of working children in Mindanao, ages 5 to 17, at 543,000 individuals.
Prevalent in Mindanao and the entire country, children suffer from the most exploitative and degrading conditions, pushed to become thugs, drug peddlers and users, and mendicants. Hired or trafficked by criminal syndicates, they are helplessly forced into prostitution and in many cases, slaughtered for their organs to be traded abroad.  Minors are not even spared from the numerous extra-judicial killings committed with impunity by state-sponsored motor-riding death squads such as in the cities of Davao, Digos, Tagum, Cagayan de Oro, Butuan, Bayugan and in other urban areas in Mindanao. Calamity-related tragedies also victimize children, such as the hundreds killed during the typhoon Sendong.
Noynoy Aquinos’ Oplan Bayanihan and all preceding anti-insurgency campaigns of the GPH have created a more horrendous and more miserable life for the children. During the first half of 2012, military operations have caused massive evacuations in areas where multinational mining and plantations operate in the five regions of Mindanao as well as in several Moro communities, displacing thousands of families, close to half of them are children. In the AFP’s vicious and systematic attack on schools, especially those in remote areas, teachers and pupils are harassed, intimidated and vilified; school buildings and school premises are occupied or used for military purposes as barracks or detachments.
Children’s rights violations are repeatedly committed by the AFP, PNP and by private goons.  Most affected are Lumad and peasant children who are often traumatized by the AFP’s indiscriminate bombing and Howitzer shelling, strafing, direct threats and intimidation, such as in the provinces of Caraga, Bukidnon, Davao, North Cotabato, the Zamboanga peninsula, and in the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.  Consequently, they experience the most difficult and unhealthy situations; many of them get sick, some even die.  During AFP civic and combat operations, minors have become easy target for corruption, seduction and rape, drug addiction, illegal arrest, torture and even extra-judicial killing.
There are also cases of children conscripted into the AFP’s war machine as CAFGUs, CVOs, BDS guards, guides and advance guards during military operations.  A fresh case of AFP recruitment of four minors was unmasked during the NPA raid in Brgy. Binicalan, San Luis, Agusan del Sur on May 30, 2012, where one 15-year-old CAFGU was wounded.   Cases of minors being tortured by the AFP and presented as “NPA child soldiers” were documented in Davao del Sur, Davao City, Cagayan de Oro, San Fernando, Bukidnon and other parts of Mindanao. There is the case of the Villa girl from Davao City who was courted by a military man, taken to the military camp and presented to the media as a child soldier. Where there is a prolonged AFP civic-military operation, girls are duped, seduced and later abandoned into pregnancy, as was the case in 2011 of four female minors in Marihatag, Surigao del Sur.
Moro children are also subjected to a host of other oppressions and injustices, such as chauvinism and other forms of discrimination. Millions of Moro children together with their families were forced to evacuate their homes and ancestral lands during Estrada’s brutal counter-insurgency campaign in 2000-01 in Central Mindanao. During the Arroyo regime in 2008, half a million Moro people, mostly women and children, were displaced due to the state’s counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency campaigns. Moro children also suffer as their families become internal refugees as a result of inter-clan wars.
Continuing US intervention in the country, especially with the ever increasing presence of US troops, has greatly contributed to the further oppression and exploitation of children in the Philippines.  Between 2008-2009, there was the case of girls who were brought to the Tropicana Beach Resort in General Santos City as prostituted women to cater to US soldiers. US armed personnel are also directly involved in combat operations in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan and Zamboanga del Sur, which have displaced, and even killed, Moro civilians, including children.
Thus, the NDFP’s national and democratic program and its socialist perspective for Filipino children are at the forefront of our revolutionary struggle. The rights of children to free education, food, health care, clothing and shelter and many others must be protected and upheld. They must be provided with nationalist, scientific and mass-based cultural programs. Socialized child-rearing and nursery and a support system for child-rearing mothers and single parents must also be promoted.
Currently and concretely in our base areas, violations against children’s rights are gradually eliminated.  The people’s democratic government has successfully reduced the number of illiterate adults and children, especially in many Lumad areas in Mindanao. Children have been organized, and cultural campaigns have been launched for them to combat anti-social activities. Collective production farms have been put up to help eradicate malnutrition in their communities.  Their health committees have coordinated with the health staff of the New People’s Army (NPA) to provide basic health services to the barrio-folk, especially to children. Units of the NPA and the organs of political power strictly adhere to the international laws of war regarding the non-recruitment of minors into the People’s Militia or the NPA.
In line with our long term program for children, it is our immediate task to the protect children’s rights and welfare.  Children must be kept safe from atrocities of the fascist armed forces of the GPH as well as from hostilities and anti-social groups.  They must be organized and educated on the history and current situation to know their place in Philippine society and the world.
More than ever, the NDFP-Mindanao is duty-bound to mobilize all its resources in order to defend, uphold and promote the rights and welfare of children, including the NDFP’s Program of Action which stipulates the creation of a special office for the continuing protection of children’s rights and welfare.

Ka Oris
Spokesperson

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT-Philippines
NDFP-Mindanao