- GILBERT BAYORAN
Thousands of sugar farmers in southern Negros have reiterated their call for the government to revive the Dacongcongon sugar mill in Brgy. Tabugon, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, that was foreclosed more than a decade ago.
In a statement, retired government prosecutor Rolando Parpa said that their petition is still pending and has not been acted on by Malacañang, since January 19, 2021.
Parpa said that ignoring the petitions of 10,000 farmers and the resolutions issued by 16 local government units, from the barangay to the municipal level, for so long is a “highest degree of social injustice and betrayal of the oath to uphold the Constitution”.
He stressed that the Dacongcogon experience “reveals governmental culture of indifference towards the hinterland poor”, which explains why some people rebel to overthrow the government.
“Let not government apathy destroy the hinterland Dacongcogon socio-economic institution that had proven its worth in the past 40 years,” Parpa said.
The sugar mill is a legacy of the late Bacolod Bishop Antonio Fortich, who established it with businessman Benjamin Gaston in 1968.
The Philippine National Bank, which bought the Dacongcogon Producers Cooperative Marketing Association Inc. (DPCMA), which has an outstanding loan of P51.43 million, as of September 2009, later foreclosed it.
Parpa, who chairs the Dacongcogon Farmers Producers Cooperative (DFPC), added that the government has no program more beneficial to the Dacongcogon farmers than reviving and preserving the local sugar milling facility.
He said he hopes that the Dacongcogon advocacy can “strike a chord in the hearts of enlightened Negrenses, who would help their disadvantaged brethren by strongly urging President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to revive the sugar mill”.
“Let government prove there is social justice in Negros by answering the petition of 10,000 people at the Dacongcogon Valley – whether or not it would be granted, rather than ignoring them as if they do not exist,” Parpa said.
He stressed that the longer government delays action on the farmers’ petition and negotiation with PNB on the mill asset, the list of people killed gets longer and their blood would be on government’s hand.
Parpa said that the revival of the socio-economic mill project is the only solution to end insurgency-related killings in the area./GB
