By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — Two teenaged members of a militant farmers’ group were wounded after four unidentified men sprayed bullets at a group of farmers in a disputed land in Kabankalan City.
Albert Francisco Jr., 17, of Sitio Lumbia, Brgy. Camansi, Kabankalan City, and Rey Bustamante, 19, of the same village, were part of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas–Negros Occidental.
Francisco had a gunshot wound in his right little finger, while Bustamante sustained gunshot wounds in his right face and right upper lip, said the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office.
The incident happened at about 8 a.m. on Saturday, the witness Sonny Francisco told the police.
Francisco and Bustamante were working in Hacienda Sta. Isabel, Brgy. Camansi, when the suspects approached and fired at them, said Sonny, who was working with the victims at the time.
The victims were taken to the Dr. Gumersindo Garcia Sr. Memorial Hospital in Kabankalan City.
A bullet believed to be from a 12-gauge shotgun was taken from the hand of Francisco.
Sonny believed the suspects were goons hired by the landowner, Pablo Sola Jr.
Francisco, Bustamante and Sonny were among the farmers claiming rights to the property they were working on in Hacienda Sta. Isabel.
“We will not stop tilling the land because [it] was awarded to us by the Department of Agrarian Reform,” Sonny said. “We are ready to [risk] our lives for the land that rightfully belongs to us.”
In January, New People’s Army rebels set on fire properties inside the hacienda and held hostage for almost 10 hours 25 farmworkers and their children and four security guards.
Police said the rebels, five of whom were women, torched a warehouse and a tractor, beheaded some of sheep, and disarmed the security guards of three shotguns and a caliber .38 revolver.
Hacienda Sta. Isabel is owned by the family of the late Kabankalan Mayor Pablo Sola Sr., who was killed in an ambush in the 1980s./PN
