“The disappearance of John Calaba, a Dulangan Manobo, in the compound of the David M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) in Brgy. Sabanal, Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat is a product of the collusion between the powerful business group and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The DMCI company guards are part of, and trained by, the Armed Forces of the Philippines as Special Civilian Armed Auxilliary (SCAA),” said Lorena Santos, secretary general of Families of Desaparecidos for Justice (Desaparecidos).
“The disappearance of John Calaba, a Dulangan Manobo, in the compound of the David M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI) in Brgy. Sabanal, Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat is a product of the collusion between the powerful business group and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The DMCI company guards are part of, and trained by, the Armed Forces of the Philippines as Special Civilian Armed Auxilliary (SCAA),” said Lorena Santos, secretary general of Families of Desaparecidos for Justice (Desaparecidos).
“The anti-disappearance law has no teeth and it is no match to the interests of big business and foreign corporations that are under the protection of the military,” added Santos.
John Calaba is Public Information Officer of KIDUMA, an organization opposed to the logging and mining projects of David M. Consunji, Inc. (DMCI), which displaced peasants and Manobo tribes away from their farms and ancestral land. In the morning of April 30, 2015, Calaba, 28, was sitting in front of his house at Brgy. Salangsang, Lebak, Sultan Kudarat when members of the Consunji company guards invited him for a meal. Calaba was never seen since then.
“The DMCI has employed the AFP’s SCAA as early as 2008 to “secure” its business interests in the different parts of the country such as in Mobo, Masbate, in Sta. Cruz, Zambales, and in Sultan Kudarat, Calaba’s hometown,” said Santos. The SCAA is created especially for the protection of mining companies like Consunji’s.
In 2008, The DMCI Mining Corp. (DMCI-MC) confirmed the “cooperation” with the AFP in securing at least 3,700-hectares of ore-rich land in Sta. Cruz, Zambales through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Army’s 7th Infantry Division. A news report said, “The DMCI-Mining Company asked the Army to ‘activate SCAA to fill up the security requirements.’ The 70th Infantry Brigade deployed an officer, 11 soldiers and 75 SCAA groups to the mining site.” The same report said, “The DMCI-MC agreed to place its civilian security force under the Army’s operational supervision.
The Consunjis landed as one of the 500 richest people in the world with the net worth of $4.1B, according to Forbes magazine. “In order to protect their interest, they needed no less than the AFP to train and arm their guards to protect their wealth,” Santos said.
“Accounts of those who knew Calaba said he was working on the documentation of the environmental destruction in his ancestral land a few months prior to his disappearance. People like Calaba are doubly exploited and oppressed—deprived of their lands and livelihood, and now, deprived of their liberty. This is gross injustice. We demand that the military and DMCI immediately surface John Calaba,” Santos added.
The SCAA, a paramilitary group similar to the CAFGU (Citizen Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit) was created specifically to protect the interests of mining corporations and other similar destructive businesses. BS Aquino openly endorsed the use of SCAA in 2011 after members of the New People’s Army raided the Taganito mines in Surigao del Norte, as a punitive action for the massive environmental damages in its area of operation. ###