The Lapanday Foods Corporation has strongly condemned the theft and burning of its properties in Barangay Mandug, saying the ‘criminal acts’ will lead to the displacement of hundreds of workers and adversely affect those having business with the company.
“It is they who are now jobless and shall bear the brunt of the consequences of this vicious act,” the company said.
In a statement circulated to all media outlets, the rebel New People’s Army justified the series of raids on Lapanday’s plants as a ‘fitting retributive action’ against a greedy feudal lord and capitalist.
“We are overjoyed that the NPA punished the Lorenzos for oppressing peasants and Lumad who are victims of their direct land-grabbing and exploitative schemes through onerous grower-ship contracts. We are joined by manufacturing and agricultural workers who slave away under inhumane working conditions while being paid pittance as wages because of Lapanday’s avarice,” the NPAs added.
The NPAs also took potshots at Mayor Sara Duterte whom they described a hypocrite.
“It is understandable that Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte views the May 29 NPA’s punitive action in the city as an “act of terrorism” against the Lorenzos, given that her husband, Atty. Mans Carpio, is a legal counsel of the Lorenzo-owned Lapanday Foods Corp. We can only expect that a GRP local chief executive who has vested interest in the companies of a landgrabbing comprador-landlord to be the latter’s spokesperson and defender,” they added.
They added: “Sara Duterte hardly made noise when Lapanday’s armed goons opened fire and wounded nine unarmed civilian peasants three days after the latter’s land occupation of the landgrabbed Lapanday banana plantation in Tagum City last December. Duterte also supported the appointment of PNP Supt. Alexander Tagum as Davao City Police Chief, the same fascist police officer who led the massacre of barricading El Niño victims in Kidapawan City in April last year.
Thus, for Sara Duterte to claim the NPA’s assault in the Lorenzo-owned businesses in Davao City a “personal insult,” is not only hypocritical but downright self-serving.”
Lapanday’s statement in full:
‘LFC strongly condemns the theft of property and the arson of its box and plastic manufacturing plants located at Barangay Mandug, Davao City by some unidentified men who entered the compound after disarming the company’s security personnel around 2 in the morning of 29 April. The company reported that it was fortunate that no employees who were working at the time of the incident were harmed or injured.
All of the company’s personnel are safe. Employee mobile phones, computers and other company properties were also stolen by the unidentified intruders who also ransacked the offices of the plant. As they were withdrawing from the plant, the unidentified intruders set paper and other flammable materials on fire that eventually engulfed the plant.
The company said in a statement that while it will cooperate with the Philippine National Police as it investigates this latest criminal act of this armed group the company urged law enforcement agencies, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines to exert effort to prevent these unidentified elements from further endangering the safety and security of people and inflicting damage to private property. The burning of the plant will lead to the displacement of hundreds of employees and adversely affected those who have existing businesses with the box and plastic plant. It is they who are now jobless and shall bear the brunt of the consequences of this vicious act, the company said.
Last week, Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, who failed in his attempt to install farmers belonging to a breakaway group of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB) on lands already registered with Hijo Employees Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative-1 (HEARBCO-1) threatened the company for prohibiting him from escorting these farmers and their supporters from various leftist organizations. This breakaway group and their supporters were coddled and abetted by the DAR leadership to openly defy the final and executory order of the court that ruled there was no agrarian dispute and DAR had no jurisdiction on the case.
The DAR under Mariano’s leadership has become a tool that causes disruption in productive farm operations that pushed persons to defy laws, inflict injury and damage to even other ARBs and ultimately, weaken the economy of the country. Lapanday hopes that perpetrators of this criminal act will all be identified, charged and brought before the criminal justice system.”
The NPA added they confiscated 39 firearms in the series of raids launched ‘to hold the Lorenzo-owned Lapanday companies accountable for their numerous crimes against their lowly-paid workers and against peasants and Lumad who were dispossessed of their lands.’
