Banana plantation to rise in Maguindanao massacre site

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Local officials, foreign technocrats and Moro peasants launched on Friday the conversion of the surroundings of the scene of the infamous Maguindanao Massacre into a 1,500-hectare Cavendish banana farm.

The launching ceremony for the banana plantation project of the Al-Mujahidun Agro Resources and Development, Inc. (AMARDI), held at the municipal government compound in Ampatuan, was capped off with the signing of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) by Ampatuan’s municipal mayor, Rasul Sangki and Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

Representatives of AMARDI also affixed their signature on the document, which outlined how the signatories, foreign and local benefactors, are to cooperate in putting up the capital-intensive banana plantation.

The plantation will cover arable lands in Ampatuan town’s Barangay Masalay, scene of the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre that left 58 people dead, more than half of them journalists.

Among the fatalities was the wife of Mangudadatu, Genalyn, and several relatives.

The victims were in a convoy on their way to file, on behalf of then vice-mayor Mangudadatu of Buluan, his certificate of candidacy for provincial governor at the capitol in Shariff Aguak town, when they were flagged down by gunmen, herded into a hill in Sitio Salman in Barangay Masalay, and were killed with assault rifles and machineguns.

Two foreign agricultural technocrats, Puerto Rican Gonzalo Ordeñana and Michael Coote, an Irish-Australian, witnessed the signing of the MOA.

Ordeñana is the plantation director, while Coote is a member of a corporate board of a multi-national entity extending technical and fiscal support in establishing the 1,500-hectare banana farm.

The two foreigners said they are grateful to Mangudadatu for linking them both with the local communities that are ready to join in the Cavendish banana venture.

Mangudadatu said the people behind the project had told him they will initially hire more than 2,000 Moro residents to work in the farm.

“We are glad about it. Employment for our people is very important in fostering peace and normalcy in conflict-stricken areas in the province," Mangudadatu said.

The launching of the banana plantation project was also witnessed by lawyer Makmod Mending, Jr., regional agriculture secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (DAF-ARMM).

Mending said the DAF-ARMM has extensive agricultural projects, including vegetable gardening, in strategic areas in Ampatuan town.

Mangudadatu and Mending had both said they are certain the coming in of foreign investors to venture into multi-million agricultural projects in Ampatuan and other towns will correct an undue impression that Maguindanao is not a safe place for foreign investors.

Mangudadatu said Malaysian capitalists are also coming to Maguindanao starting this month to put up oil palm plantations in areas where banana farming is not viable.