Romualdo Basilio, chairman of Kumilos, lamented that the FOB has affected all agricultural workers in Compostela. Other farms such as those of Marsman in the towns
of Mawab, Nabunturan and Pantukan, the Dizon Farm in Monkayo and the Davao Fruit farms in other towns of Compostela Valley are imposing the scheme, he said.

Unfortunately, Basilio said, workers of these farms have no union thus making them vulnerable to such ploy. Kumilos has tried to reach out to workers in these areas.

But in these agro-corporate farms unionizing faces obstacles. Military elements who are reportedly employed by companies harass union organizers and the companies themselves are imposing harsher policies to discourage unionizing.

“These agricultural workers are slowly dying from the hands of these big capitalists raking in huge profits,” said Basilio.

Even growers are affected

Farmworkers are not alone whose lives, they have, have become miserable under the FOB. Small farmowners or growers too are victims under this system. They complain that they too are not free from this type of manipulation by big banana corporations. In fact, many of them have joined the recent Labor Day protest in Davao City streets.

Alberto Daite, who owns a piece of land in Maragusan, entered into a growership agreement with Stanfilco in 1993. In a memorandum of agreement (MoA) he signed with
the company, he entrusted his land certificate title to the company, renting out the land for 25 years.

In exchange, the company was supposed to provide financing for farm inputs and
labor costs, from planting, growing, harvesting up to processing and packing of bananas. The company has the sole purchasing right to their harvest under prices that they dictate.

Daite said he only learned later that Stanfilco used their land title as collateral with the Land Bank where the company sourced the amount they used to finance the growers.

But such financing offered by the plantation company was true before. Today, the current FOB scheme has forced the growers to the wall – they now take the sole burden of financing the operations. The plantation companies are mere buyers of the growers’ products under terms the former dictate unfairly.

In their case, Daite said, they earn a net income of a measly P13 per box (containing 12 kilos) of banana under the price set by Stanfilco. This, despite the fact that costs of production have gone higher while banana exporters are making a killing out of banana exports. Current prices of banana in the foreign market, based on the monitoring of the union, are now $35 a kilo.

Unpaid loans

With a losing income, growers are protesting that they could hardly pay the debts that are now passed on to them by the company. The banks too are now going after them and are bound to confiscate the growers’ property which is held as collateral because of unpaid loans.

These conditions are now causing agitation not only among farmworkers who are now clamoring against unjust labor practices, but also farm owners who see the danger of losing out their lands to such schemes.

As more farmlands are being sought for expansion of banana plantations in the adjoining provinces of Davao del Norte and Compostela Valley, Manong Berto is seeing the situation as a challenge for him and for the rest of agricultural workers in the province to form unions so that they can collectively protect their rights and welfare. Bulatlat

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