ABOUT 6,000 farmers who were allegedly fired at by law enforcers for barricading a highway in Kidapawan City are set to file charges against local government and police officials on Monday, April 4.
The farmers formed a barricade on April 1 to dramatize their demand for food aid and calamity fund, the farmers said the local government and police officials are ones responsible for the incident that left at least two farmers dead and 33 injured, including police officers.
According to Jerome Aba, national spokesman of Suara Bangsamoro, the farmers are holding accountable North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, Kidapawan City Mayor Joseph Evangelista and Senior Superintendent Alexander Tagum, the provincial director of the North Cotabato police, for the incident.
They could not be reached for comment as of April 3.
Aba said the officials will be sued for arbitrary detention, as more complaints will be filed in relation to the shooting deaths of several farmers and the wounding of many others in the coming days.
The peasants’ legal counsel is composed of a team from the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), he said.
Suara Bangsamoro is one of the support groups that is helping the aggrieved farmers in organizing the mass action to ask the government for rice assistance due to the devastation brought by the El Niño that left them without food.
The farmers, most of them belonging to the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and Apo Sandawa Lumadnong Panaghiusa sa North Cotabato, have been complaining of delayed assistance from the local government units in the province and in their respective municipalities prompting them to hold the protest along the Cotabato-Davao highway which started March 30.
In the course of the barricade which the provincial government of North Cotabato deemed as illegal as the peasants failed to secure a permit to rally, the police, on orders of Taliño-Mendoza, dispersed the protesters which led to the bloodbath.
Reports quoted Taliño-Mendoza as saying she took full responsibility of the police action that resulted to the violence.
After the incident, Aba said the police did not allow anyone, particularly the farmers, to enter or leave the Spottswood Methodist Mission Center of the United Methodist Church in Kidapawan where the farmers are staying at present compelling them to file the complaint.
Even medical teams from nongovernmental organizations based in Davao City who volunteered to help the peasants were not immediately allowed to enter the premises over the weekend, he added.
Aba said they are questioning the legality of the order of the local government in preventing anyone to enter or leave the area as authorities do not have the basis to do so.
As of Sunday, no one from the peasants’ groups, around 4,500 of them, was permitted by law enforcers to leave or enter the premises of the Methodist Church where they are camping out.
Even the 300-plus farmers who were detained in Makilala town but were freed by police were not allowed entry inside the compound as of Sunday noon, said Aba.
With the order to stay put, Aba said they find it hard to move around to tend to the needs of the peasants, even those who are confined in hospitals, as he alleged they were also threatened by law enforcers with arrest and detention if they attempt to go out of the church compound.
“The situation here is still very tense,” Aba said in a telephone interview with Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro, Sunday afternoon.
He said authorities also made it hard for food donations such as bags of rice to be delivered inside the church compound.
Last Saturday, actor Robin Padilla brought with him 200 sacks of rice, while Davao City Mayor and presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte promised 15,000 sacks.
Padilla, however, was given access to enter the compound.
Aba said the farmers don’t mind where the donations come from, whether from politicians or from private individuals since they need the food for their daily sustenance. Thirteen bags of rice are needed to feed the thousands of peasants every meal.
“They (farmers) welcome any kind of help kahit saan galing, but we have a policy for politicians. They can help but they are not allowed to campaign,” he added.
Also today, a fact-finding team headed by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Karapatan and KMP will conduct an investigation into the incident and the result will be the basis for new set of complaints which will be filed against the perpetrators, he added.