UMA said in a report that the 43 it rescued from Dec. 25 to 31 included minors and that most of them were Manobo tribal folk from Valencia City, Don Carlos, Maramag and Pangantucan in Bukidnon province.
“Two needed immediate medical attention. The first one, a senior citizen, was already sent home. The other is currently confined at a public hospital in Quezon City for a head injury. Doctors recommend immediate surgery but the family requests that the victim be treated in Mindanao,” UMA reported.
“In November 2016, the national secretariat of UMA received a report from its local affiliate in Bukidnon province, the Organisasyon sa Yanong Obrerong Nagkahiusa (OGYON) that a number of their member-farmworkers were recruited as cane cutters or sakadas and transported to Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac,” UMA said.
It said OGYON claimed that “the sakadas were enduring slavelike conditions. They are seeking assistance and are asking to be rescued for them to return safely to Bukidnon.”
UMA said the sakadas were recruited by Greenhand Labor Service Cooperative that was allegedly requested by the Cojuangco firm Agrikulto Inc. to procure a thousand sugar workers or cane cutters to work in Hacienda Luisita. None of the firms could be immediately contacted yesterday for comment on the issue.
While Hacienda Luisita was distributed to its farm workers under agrarian reform, the Cojuangco clan had retained ownership of some 500 hectares, while some areas already distributed were reportedly leased back from the farmers.
“At least 160 of around 800 to a thousand sugar workers reportedly recruited from Mindanao were from the province of Bukidnon. There are at least eight sakadas from Bukidnon still in Hacienda Luisita, while other sakadas who also await rescue are from other Mindanao provinces such as Cotabato and Davao. The unaccounted sakadas have either escaped from Hacienda Luisita to return to Mindanao or sought other employment here in Luzon,” UMA reported.
UMA noted that “a number of the rescued sakadas are unable to read and write and were recruited through verbal agreements or upon endorsement of lumad chieftains.”
“They were promised a ‘Tarlac package’ consisting of a daily wage of P450 plus benefi ts, including free meals and provisions or board and lodging, and travel to and from Hacienda Luisita. They were also promised P7,000 cash advance in three tranches,” the group also said.
UMA said the recruiter told the chieftains it would help them in their ancestral land claims.
“When the sakadas arrived in Hacienda Luisita, they were housed in a cramped, poorly- ventilated and stinky bunkhouse in Barangay Mapalacsiao, near the CAT sugarmill in Hacienda Luisita. They are locked in the bunkhouse at night and are not allowed to leave,” UMA noted.
The sakadas were also made to work from 4 a.m. to 5 p.m. in sugar cane fields even outside Hacienda Luisita, in areas as far as Arayat, Pampanga or Pangasinan or in areas which they said were near Baguio.
UMA also quoted the rescued sakadas as saying that “instead of daily wage, they were offered a pakyaw rate or group rate of P220 per ton for cutting and hauling cane once they arrived in Luisita.”
“This rate is based on a quota of 18 tons a day for a sakada group composed of eight to 13 cane cutters. The sakadas complain that it is physically impossible even for a team to cut and haul 18 tons of cane within a day. They can only cut 10 tons a day and fill two trucks a week, making their take home pay averaging at a measly P100 per day,” UMA noted.
UMA obtained copies of the sakada payroll indicating the recruited workers received from mere P66.21 to a P898.20 a week or from P9.46 to P128.31 a day amid numerous deductions.
The minimum wage for plantation agricultural workers in Central Luzon is P 334 a day.
UMA also noted that the sakadas “had to pay for their own food and provisions.”
The rescued sakadas told UMA there were times eight to 13 of them had to share congee and sardines for a meal, while others just put salt in their rice.
UMA said that the rescued sakadas are now being assisted by the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Agrarian Reform.
Meanwhile, UMA said that the recruitment agency is reportedly again recruiting sakadas to replace those who were either rescued or have fled.
