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Sunday, April 02, 2006
Paquibato tribesmen working for a peaceful district
TRIBAL leaders in Paguibato District are working to maintain peace and order in the wake that foreign groups are considering their area for investments.
Datu Luis Lambac recently said they could hardly wait that their portion in Marilog would become part of a palm oil project with a British investor.
"Now is the time that our place will also be developed," he said.
Lumbac said the project would be coursed through the Matigsalog Foundation in coordination with the City Government of Davao, in which some 45,000 hectares under their ancestral domain are being earmarked for the project.
He added that since last year there were already talks for other investments like the agro-forestry project under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and growing of coconut trees and other fruit trees with the Department of Agriculture.
Lambac said that while some parts of Paquibato like barangays Mapola and Lumiad are under threat by the New Peoples Army (NPA), the rest of the area is already peaceful.
He said they have realized how the rebels exploited them, as up to this time they have remained poor and uneducated.
Lambac and his group said they do not want to be manipulated again.
He said it is only through the entry of investors that would bring development to the place assuring the authorities that they would protect the area against unwanted infiltrators.
The Lumad's area is a vast fertile land and when developed could become a booming agro-industrial site.
Meanwhile, Task Force Davao chief Eduardo del Rosario said their operation against the rebels is continuing.
He said the NPA's presence in the two barangays is because those are located strategically within their resources.
Del Rosario said they make the two barangays in Paquibato as their base so they could continue their extortion activities along the plantation companies in the neighboring towns.
He said the group committing a series of recent atrocities in the area is considered as bandits because their acts are considered plain banditry and unlike the NPA insurgents are only armed with short guns and knives.
Del Rosario said this group of four is also against the NPA, but added that they could not tolerate their criminal acts as they have been taking advantage of the helpless civilians.
"We cannot count them (the bandits) in," del Rosario said.
He denied an earlier report that this group of Kumander Dante was trained by the military saying that when they trained lumads as members of the Citizen's Armed Forces Geographical Units they would be properly armed with M14 and Carbine.
He said what is happening in Paquibato is a peace and order problem and addressing it should be done in coordination with the police and the military. (PIA/Pbanzon)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (April 2, 2006 issue)
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