Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) Secretary General Ranmil Echanis said the Tarlac Solar Power Plant Project (TSPP) is a public-private partnership deal between the Department of Energy and PetroSolar. A German company, Conergy, is also a partner in the project.
Echanis said the project is located within a 500-hectare area which, in 2013, was subject of a Notice of Land Reform Coverage (NOC) issued by the DAR.
He noted that even before the Supreme Court ordered in 2011 land distribution in Hacienda Luisita – then owned by Pres. Aquino’s family – farmers who were cultivating the site had been subjected to “orchestrated violent attacks by police, security guards and goons.”
Echanis noted “renewed state violence and militarization in Hacienda Luisita, particularly in barangays Balete, Lourdes and Central where TSPP is located.
“The solar power project in Luisita is basically about landgrabbing, swindling and forcibly evicting farmworkers from this promised land,” he said.
Echanis reported that last Nov. 26 and 28, two truckloads of heavily-armed soldiers together with two mobile cars full of policemen escorted linesmen and laborers of PetroSolar subcontractors at Barangay Balete to set up electrical posts within a disputed agricultural area being claimed by Cojuangco-Aquino firm Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco).
He accused the Cojuangcos of “brushing off the farmers’ legitimate demands for land and justice to accommodate foreign investors who are ready to bankroll these so-called ‘green’ projects.”
UMA lambasted the DAR for allowing TSPP construction despite its recognition of agrarian disputes existing in the area.
“Defiant farmers and their supporters, including Anakpawis Partylist Rep. Fernando Hicap were among those nabbed by police at one time in the project site, while many were charged by Tadeco with various trumped-up harassment suits. Most of these charges were later reverted to DAR and duly categorized as agrarian in nature,” Echanis recalled.
