By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Labor groups questioned President Rodrigo Duterte’s sincerity when he announced all of Negros would be subject to land reform.

National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) Secretary-General John Milton Lozande said of the president’s plans, “Instead of giving land to the farmers, he has only given them bullets.”

“[Duterte] is not really sincere [about] placing Negros island under agrarian reform,” he asserted. “He might distribute a few hectares or so as a token and nothing more – he does not even have an agrarian reform law!”

“He is only interested in maintaining the status quo and crushing any opposition to his regime, including his allies, many of which, like Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon, Jr., are landlords themselves,” the NFSW official added.

Lozande also discussed Duterte’s recent order to deploy more troops to the island, saying, it will not solve the agrarian problem.

“Such [a] show of force is meant not to address the land problem [on] the island but to entrench the hacienderos hold [over] their vast landholdings by suppressing sugar workers’ and peasants’ assertion of their rights to the land,” he noted.

Meanwhile, in response to the president claiming feudalism on the island breeds insurgency, General Alliance of Workers Association Secretary-General Wennie Sancho said, “The government should solve the problem brought about by feudalism thru [a] genuine land reform program.”

He noted, undistributed land must be thoroughly reviewed to determine if it has benefited people./DGB, WDJ