SAYING thousands of farmers will be adversely affected by the proposed Metro Rail Transit 7 (MRT 7) project, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Sunday launched a monthlong protest to oppose the project.
The monthlong protests and actions highlight the “October Peasant Month Campaign for Land and Peace,” with farmers from San Jose del Monte in Bulacan holding a protest action on North Avenue in Quezon City, the target location of the common train station that will intersect existing railways with the planned MRT 7 project.
KMP said the proposed MRT 7 project will displace thousands of farmers in Bulacan and urban-poor communities in Quezon and Caloocan cities.
“The MRT 7 project will be a bane for farmers. This multibillion-peso project was sealed in corruption,” KMP Secretary Antonio Flores said in a statement.
The farmers also conducted protest programs in Fairview and Quirino Avenue to inform the public about the MRT 7 deal.
The MRT 7 project was approved by former President Benigno S. Aquino III, KMP said, in favor of the business interests of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) tycoon Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.—Aquino’s uncle.
Eriberto Peña of the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan (AMB) said farmers will lead a weeklong Kampuhang Bayan (people’s campout) in Sitio San Isidro in San Jose del Monte, the target location of the interdepot transport terminal of the MRT 7 to be built on productive agricultural lands subject to the decades-long agrarian dispute between farmers and the Araneta family.
“We will defend our land at all cost and oppose the MRT 7,” Peña said.
Development and public convenience should not be at the expense of food security and land tenure.
“In the case of many land-use conversions, it has always been profit and business over public interest,” Peña said. KMP said business giants, led by the Ayalas of the TriNoma Mall and the Sys of the SM Group, have recently agreed on the location of the common station that will intersect the MRT 7 with the MRT 1 and Light Rail Transit systems.
Flores said this agreement is “a win-win deal between oligarchs, who will benefit the most from the railway project.”
“Oligarchs, like Danding, Henry Sy and the Ayalas, will surely make billion of profit out of the MRT 7 project at the expense of farmers and urban poor,” the KMP leader said.
MRT 7, the most expensive public-private partnership (PPP) project approved by the previous administration, costs P71 billion.
Cojuangco’s SMC will manage the construction and operation of the 22-kilometer train system that will stretch from North Avenue in Quezon City to Sitio San Isidro in San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan.
Signed in 2008, the MRT 7 project was delayed, in part, due to the strong campaign and opposition of farmers of San Jose del Monte.
Flores said the MRT 7’s intermodal depot, real estate and commercial-development component in San Jose del Monte City will be built over productive agricultural lands being claimed by Araneta Properties, owned by Gregorio Araneta III.