Makilala rubber farmers to protest slumping buying price
AGRICULTURE • 02:23 AM Tue Dec 2, 2014
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By:
DXND Radyo Bida
MAKILALA, North Cotabato – Due to continuous fall of
buying price of raw rubber products in the province, the rubber farmers are set
to hold street protests.
To be spearheaded by Makilala-based Free Tappers
Federation of North Cotabato, the protest aims to call on government to do
something on the continuous slump of price or rubber.
Anabelle Muting, secretary general of Free Tappers
federation, said the prices of rubber had been on the downward trend since 2012
and the government has not done anything about it.
The current buying price of traders for a kilo of raw rubber
is at P23, way below from the 2012 price of P80 to P90 a kilo.
The traders earn triple from our products,” she
said, adding that some manipulators and unscrupulous individuals dictate the
local price and not the world market as some officials claim.
They will call for a stop to abuse of rubber
farmers, break the monopoly in the rubber industry and implement genuine
agrarian reform.
Celso Usamon, a rubber planter, claimed some leaders in the province have been manipulating the price of rubber in connivance
with agriculture officials.
He did not name names but hinted everybody in the
province know who the manipulators are, at the expense of ordinary rubber planters and tappers.
He urged militant groups to join the rubber planters
in their struggle instead of protesting other issues like alleged militarization
and human rights.
This is a clear human rights violation committed by
our own traders and local leaders,” Usamon said.