Iguay Waay Taguay-MATA SANG Banwa

15/08/2024

02/08/2024

𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐁𝐄𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐙'𝐒 ‘𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘’, 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐃𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐃
𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝑷𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑨𝒍𝒃𝒆𝒆 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝑩𝒖𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒕 𝑪𝒂𝒑𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕
BAYAN Negros
July 17, 2024

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑘𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑏𝑦 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑀𝑎𝑦𝑜𝑟 𝐴𝑙𝑏𝑒𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑝𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑎𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑠𝑜-𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑑 ‘𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦’ – 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠.

BAYAN Negros is in solidarity with the more than 24 tenants of Manokan Country, home to the renowned Bacolod chicken inasal, who have been displaced to make room for SM Prime Holdings Inc.'s corporate expansion into this renowned cultural heritage, facilitated by the bureaucrat capitalist and Bacolod City Mayor Albee Benitez.

For 41 years, Manokan Country on Father Mauricio Ferero Street has been a beloved destination for both tourists and food enthusiasts alike. It stands as a cultural cornerstone in Bacolod, even before SM Bacolod mall was built on reclaimed land. Now, the predatory SM Prime Holdings Inc.threaten to absorb these small entrepreneurs into its mega-mall complex in the guise of “renovation” and development. This would inevitably lead to exorbitant rents for tenants and higher prices for consumers.

Some tenants refuse to vacate their spots, asserting that the deal between the local government unit and SM Prime Holdings is illegal and must be nullified. The tenants’ lawyers point to City Ordinance 16, Series of 1983, which originally established Manokan Country and mandates that any alterations or agreements involving a private entity must be approved by both the Mayor and the Sangguniang Panglungsod. They claim no genuine consultation with the stakeholders have been held and accuse the City Mayor of unfairly fast-tracking a deal in favor of SM.

The displacement of Manokan Country tenants is just a prelude to many more projects under Benitez’ oversight that would sacrifice the broad masses of Bacolod into the altar of corporate greed.

Since taking office, Benitez has aggressively courted both local and foreign investors to transform Bacolod into a so-called "Super City." However, this vision of inclusive growth masks a reality where the city becomes increasingly subservient to capitalist whims and big business agendas.

Thousands of fisherfolks and urban poor will also be displaced from the shorelines of Brgy Banago to pave way for the more than a thousand-hectare reclamation projects proposed by local and foreign compradors. More than 3 hectares of land in front of the property of Councilor Vladimir Gonzales has already been reclaimed and its operations have temporarily stopped due to the widespread indignation from progressive groups. Through a Sangguniang Panglungsod resolution hastily passed, Mayor Albee Benitez himself has been authorized to directly apply a whooping 621-hectare reclamation project to the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA).

Thousands of jeepney drivers in Bacolod have also denounced the Local Public Transport Route Plan (LPTRP) that would effectively kill their livelihoods, to pave way for modern jeeps and Benitez’s favored e-jeeps. They claim that Albee’s sloganeering of “green routes” and modernizing of the transport system is merely a way to encourage foreign entities to bombard us with imported and second-rate vehicles.

Even basic social services, such as electricity (Razon-owned More Power) and water (Villar’s PrimeWater), are being turned over to corporate hands resulting in price hikes in monthly bills. The promise of better and efficient services at the hands of private entities are proven sham as consumers continue to bear the brunt of persistent black outs and coffee-colored water.

For his Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino (4PH) program, Marcos Jr chose Bacolod City for a premiere test run, locally adopted by Benitez through its Asenso Yuhum Housing Program. The urban poor slam such a move as not genuinely heeding their calls for affordable housing. Initial reports claim that the narrow units cost Php2,500 a month, a hefty prices for the urban poor and homeless who barely have enough money to eat every day. Moreover, the housing unit is only available through a PAG-IBIG loan and built through private firms WRS Holdings Inc. and Scheirman Construction Consolidated Inc.

Small farmers and farm workers are also threatened by various land-use conversion proposals of the local government to pave the way for more malls and corporate establishments. In Hacienda Conchita in Brgy. Granada, more than 88 hectares of agricultural land will be surrendered to capitalists and converted for commercial use, affecting more than 102 households and their livelihood.

Mayor Albee Benitez is truly a textbook bureaucrat capitalist: using his seat of power to effectively facilitate the incursion of local and foreign capital into our land. It is no surprise that Benitez was one of the mayors who were pushing for the fast passage of the Negros Island Region (NIR) law, a move that will further make it easier for them to consolidate power over the vast resources of the province.

To protect their interests, the bureaucrat capitalist will use the police and military to threaten the growing unrest of the people. Case in point is the massive deployment of more than 299 police forces in Western Visayas, including four barangays in Bacolod, through the Revitalized Pulis sa Barangay (R-PSB) Program and Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP). Residents of Brgy Banago, where the resistance against reclamation is strong, have already reported increased presence of uniformed and non-uniformed police presence in their communities.

Coming from a family of Marcos cronies, Benitez has truly imbibed the Marcosian obsession with appearances: building infrastructures and investing on “arts and culture” to hide the true face of the struggling masses in Bacolod. His “Super City” propaganda can only do so much and he cannot hide the worsening economic and political crisis being dealt with by ordinary folks.

We call on the broad Negrosanon people to denounce and expose Mayor Albee Benitez’s schemes to further dig us into a neoliberal hellhole. We stand with the tenants of Manokan Country and all those facing displacement, echoing their call for justice and genuine consultation.

Together, we must resist the corporate greed and neoliberal policies that Mayor Albee Benitez represents. The struggle for a Bacolod that prioritizes its people over profit continues, and it is through solidarity and collective action that we can reclaim our city from the clutches of corporate greed and exploitation.

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24/07/2024

Another students again passed the civic exam at the Dutch Embassy in Spain in one take. Congratulations Joy. Its time to fix now your papers going to the Netherlands 🌷🌷🌷🇳🇱🇳🇱