Land redistributions on Mindanao
have largely by-passed those dispossessed by plantation agriculture
in favour of Christian settler-workers loyal, or subservient to,
planation operators (Vellema et al., 2011). As Franco and Abinales
(2007: 322) point out, ‘the Philippine state is failing abjectly to
fulfil its obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of
the rural poor population’.