Thursday, February 25, 2016

Meet The Man Who Helped Marcos Bring Negros Island To Its Knees

Posted On Thursday, February 25, 2016 by Tech Support • .

Negros Island was in a woeful state at the eve of the snap elections in 1986. Negros as a word was synonymous to "Crisis" in those days. For the longest time, the sugar industry, romanticized by the well-heeled landowners of Negros and Iloilo, was the prima donna of Philippine society. It was a firm circle which not even the imperial Manila politicians could easily penetrate.

Negros, the rich land of sugar now had to contend with the criticism of many. The lady had fallen into disgrace as pillaged by one of its own, strategically placed by the dictator, Ferdinand Marcos.

Roberto S. Benedicto, a law school classmate and fraternity brother of Marcos, who became president of the government-owned Philippine National Bank, ambassador to Japan and head of the national sugar monopoly, aided Marcos in a systematic plunder of the sugar industry. While Benedicto had been made to control various media interests, RSB as he was most easily know in Negros was the Marcos crony for sugar. Benedicto later bought the Traders Royal Bank, which loans money to sugar planters, and Northern Lines, which carries sugar to the U.S.

The charges pointed to the gross and deliberate mismanagement of the billion peso sugar industry by the National Sugar Trading Corporation (NASUTRA), Philippine Sugar Commission (PHILSUCOM), and the phased-out Philippine Exchange (PHILEX).

Because of the dire straits the sugar industry and Negros as in, an unsettling atmosphere was felt throughout the cities of Bacolod and Silay, but more so in the countryside where the insurgency was brewing. The New People's Army was strong and energized with the bravado of vengeance from the fresh wounds of the Escalante Massacre. Overall, it was the domino effect of RSB's raiding the sugar industry for and in behalf of Marcos.

By 1986, sugarcane planters and millers in Western Visayas and elsewhere in the country slowly mustered their guts and were reported ready to testify before the Batasan foreign trade subcommittee on the charges of graft, corruption, and other irregularities which allegedly caused them losses of P116 billion to P144 billion since 1974 thereby contributing to the downfall of the sugar industry which greatly affected everyone in the chain, especially the impoverished in the countryside.

The EDSA revolution came at the right time. The planters had enough.

It may be an exaggeration but there is truth in the fact that words cannot describe what kind of bloodshed would break out in Negros in the summer of 1986 if EDSA had not happened in February.

I leave this story here for all Negrenses to retell the story of the horror of Negros in Crisis - a crisis aggravated by a man who played traitor to his "kasimanwas". For those who don't know about it, ask a Negrense.