Yap not told of Korean, Japanese farm leases

Another political murder is gripping Malaysia. An opposition leader plunged to his death after being tortured by anti-graft officers during a ten-hour interrogation. Teoh Beng Hock, 30, was found mangled Thursday at the balcony of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission building in the capital of Selangor state. Authorities immediately claimed it a suicide, but Teoh’s comrades say it’s absurd since he was about to get married.

It’s all part of a political conspiracy to topple the growing opposition, cries Sivarasa Rasiah, state assembly member. Selangor is controlled by a party under Anwar Ibrahim’s opposition alliance that has won elections in four of Malaysia’s 13 states. A diplomat believes the anti-opposition plot has the blessing of no less than Prime Minister Najib Razak. Anwar last April nearly took federal parliament majority from Razak, who in 2006 was also linked to murder arising from military sales kickbacks.

Quoting MACC insiders, Anwar’s men said Teoh was “manhandled and threatened” by interrogators. Supposedly the aim was to make Teoh implicate opposition figures to contrived fund misuse. “When he refused to do so, the officers dragged him to the window of the 14-storey building and threatened to throw him out,” one source narrated. “Teoh paid the ultimate price in the hands of overzealous officers.” Rights lawyer Rasiah linked the death to Razak’s wish to wrest Selangor, Malaysia’s economic powerhouse, from foes. Victory of Anwar’s team in the 2008 federal polls denied Razak’s ruling party the two-thirds headlock it had enjoyed for four decades.

MACC agents picked up Teoh on the eve of his wedding. His fiancée, expecting their first baby, has vowed to raise it as a symbol of his sacrifice. Officers said Teoh was not a suspect in any crime but couldn’t explain why he was grilled the whole night without counsel. Another opposition man, taken in for questioning the same day, buttressed the manhandling story. Tan Boon Hwa said he was forced to stand for four hours as MACC officers threatened to assault him. “They kept calling he stupid china man,” he told reporters. “They said if I don’t talk, they will take away my wife and there would be no one to care for the children.”

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News took officials by surprise. Supposedly a South Korean province has leased 94,000 hectares of farms in Mindoro to grow 10,000 tons of corn a year. Agriculture Sec. Arthur Yap says it has not been cleared with him, so worries about the effects on domestic food supply and farmers’ welfare.

This isn’t the first time that items reached the press ahead of officials about foreigners leasing large tracks of Philippine farms. Early this month an ex-congressman in Ilocos region announced that a Japanese partner is to lease 600,000 hectares of coconut plantations for bio-diesel. In Dec. 2008 officials accompanying President Arroyo to Qatar opened talks to rent out 100,000 hectares to the oil-rich desert state. And in 2007 agrarian reform bureaucrats said China was aiming to use 1.24 million hectares of Filipino soil to feed its growing population.

Yap cannot imagine what would happen to small owners of farms to be leased. Will they be leaving their backbreaking rain-or-shine toil and instead laze around on verandas counting the foreigners’ lease payments? Yap says Gov. Josephine Ramirez Sato of mountainous Mindoro Occidental has denied knowledge of the Korean lease. Being in Palau for fisheries talks when news broke in Manila, he has yet to question leaders of Mindoro Oriental plains. About the Japanese lease in Ilocos, Yap cautiously avoided prying into a “private deal”. Says he: “We want to entice foreign investors to develop our agriculture, but we must secure food supply and farmers’ rights. As a matter of policy, we don’t allow the conversion of farms for food to farms for non-food.” The Mindoro corn project was billed for food and animal feed. The Japanese coconut lease aims for the new bio-fuel moneymaker on top of edible oil.

Agriculture employs 35 percent of the workforce, and makes up 18 percent of GDP. Labor statistics show that the sector has created more work than others during the global financial crisis. Yap says one advantage from foreign lease of farmlands would be irrigation. It costs P600,000 to water a hectare of farm, money the government doesn’t have.

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An oft-criticized official deserves congratulations this time — for the rollout of brand-new train coaches. Upgrading the state railway was long overdue; it took Mike Defensor’s persistence to put it on track... Congrats too to Maj. Gen. Juancho Sabban, new Marine Commandant... “The law of the heart is love,” swoons election lawyer Romy Macalintal. With that as title, he launched a new radio show that mixes romantic songs and poems: Saturdays, 8-9 p.m., on DWBR 104.3 FM... More blessings to Fr. Mateo de Jesus, San Beda College president-rector, on his 25th ordination anniversary... Urgent word from Carlos Juan Paolo Vega of the UP-Los Baños College of Economics: the 31st homecoming on July 24 is moved to Valle Verde Clubhouse, Pasig City. For details, call Prof. Nanette Aquino, (0921) 6435861 or (049) 5362846... Prayers please for little Fatima Soriano, hospitalized for pneumonia, a delicate due to her kidney transplant. The blind girl, who has healed or inspired tens of thousands worldwide, now herself needs our common entreaties to God for healing.

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“Your life can end in the high note of sanctity or the low note of depravity. You are responsible for the music of your life.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ.

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