KMU slams military basing, red-baiting in Antipolo piggery

Kilusang Mayo Uno slammed the basing of a military unit in a piggery farm in Antipolo, Rizal and its lashes of red-baiting against progressive organizations.

About a hundred members of the 16th Infantry Battalion – noted for its record of extra-judicial killings, abductions and other human rights violations in Mindoro and Nueva Ecija under the leadership of the notorious Gen. Jovito Palparan – has turned a day care center in front of Robina Farms in Antipolo, Rizal into a military camp for more than a month now.

On Monday, August 24, the military summoned the piggery workers in a forum within the farm premises, duly approved by the management. In the forum, 1st Lt. Jovelyn Cabading, who acted as spokesperson, said that some workers in the farm are members of the CPP-NPA. Robina Farm workers belong to a union affiliated with the Alliance of Nationalist and Genuine Labor Organization-KMU (ANGLO-KMU)

She also tagged as communist fronts partylists Anakpawis, Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Kabataan, as well as sectoral organizations Courage, ACT, LFS, among others.

Just recently, the Robina management hired a new chief of security and other “new workers” who were former military soldiers and intelligence agents.

“Aside from the fact that they act like pigs, those military men should have no business in the piggery. Their dirty allegations poses grave threats to the lives and safety of the workers,” said Leonardo “Ben” Perez, president of ANGLO-KMU.

Perez also narrated how the Robina piggery and poultry farm in San Miguel, Bulacan has been militarized for three years now. Workers there experienced extreme harassment, forcing union officers also under ANGLO-KMU to resign.

“The Arroyo regime and big business elites are so desperate in trying to make the Filipino workers and people pay for their political and economic crises. They now resort to more and more to brute military force to defend their interests.

“They are in fact scared – of the capacity of organized workers and people to make this regime pay for its crimes, to pressure big business elites to give in to the just demands of workers and people amid pretensions of belt-tightening” Perez added.

“The Filipino workers and people will not be bullied. We will not bow down to the repression and intimidation being inflicted upon us by this regime and especially by its military,” said Perez. #