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Article: Tales from Tagalog: the odds may be against them, but the people of a village in the Philippines are determined to reclaim their land from sugar. Devlin Kuyek and Andrew Skinner report.(Land)
- Article from:
- New Internationalist
- Article date:
- December 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 New Internationalist Magazine. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE ride home through the sugar hacienda can be disheartening for the residents of Buntog, a small village within the Canlubang Sugar Estate in the Filipino province of Southern Tagalog. The jeepneys (the distinctive national mode of transportation) that travel across the Estate pass through lands where neighbouring villages and sugar fields recently stood. These lands are now home to an industrial zone for multinational corporations such as Monsanto and BASF--their paved properties and air-conditioned buildings contrasting starkly with the mud road of the hacienda.
The people of Buntog have lived here since 1911 when the area was unoccupied virgin forest. They ...