The National Democratic Front–Negros (NDF-Negros) fiercely condemns the criminal negligence and institutional corruption demonstrated by the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), the Department of Agriculture (DA), and the reactionary local government units (LGUs) of the Negros Island Region (NIR) amid a devastating pest infestation.
For months, the Red-Striped Soft Scale Insect (RSSI) has ravaged our sugar fields like a plague. Nearly a third of the region’s sugarcane fields, approximately 76,607 hectares, has been swallowed by the infestation, leaving a staggering 390,000-metric-ton crater in production valued at ₱17.5 billion in losses. This collapse directly strikes at the stomach of over 74,000 small planters and more than 700,000 agricultural workers who form the very backbone of Negros.
While working-class families sink deeper into destitution, ruling bureaucrats and local landlords treat this crisis as a goldmine. Rather than deploying swift, scientific, and grounded relief to affected sectors, the SRA, DA, and LGU officials have abandoned the Negrosanon masses to fight a ruinous pest with bare hands and empty promises. Worse, they have actively capitalized on the people’s agony to boost their own pockets through bloated, ineffective “emergency” measures.
The squandering of ₱200 million on aerial spraying campaigns is a blatant crime against the peasantry. Repeated field reports from affected communities confirm that aerial spraying is entirely useless against RSSI under current field conditions. Yet, authorities insist on burning millions on these showy operations simply because they yield massive kickbacks. They prioritize money-making schemes over actual pest control, draining public funds as the infestation continues to spread unchecked.
This calculated negligence proves what the masses have long known, that the bureaucrat-capitalists running the NIR, SRA, and DA have zero intention of resolving the grievances of the Negrosanon people. They intentionally deploy delaying tactics and band-aid measures to prolong the crisis and squeeze every last peso out of government allocations.
Meanwhile, hunger worsens by the day. The people of Negros are caught between ruined harvests and the crushing burden of skyrocketing prices for basic food commodities and essential farm inputs.
The NDF-Negros demands an immediate end to this extortion scheme of the reactionary government. Alongside the agricultural sector, we demand that the reactionary government cease its parasitic practices and address the root causes of this agricultural collapse by providing immediate financial compensation to all affected sugar planters and workers, doubling land rehabilitation through free soil inputs and subsidized equipment, diverting misused millions toward research for effective and ecologically sound pest control, and terminating neoliberal policies—especially the importation of foreign sugar.
The peasantry and farmworkers of Negros will not silently starve while bureaucrat-capitalists profit off their destruction. We call on all small planters, agricultural workers, and all the tilling and toiling masses of Negros to unite, organize, and fiercely resist this systemic exploitation. Advance the struggle for genuine agrarian reform, and defend our land and livelihoods against state corruption and comprador bourgeoisie’s greed and exploitation.
