Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) 
Peasant Movement of the Philippines 


Kamukhaan: A Poisoned Village
Photos by: Oliver Garcia
Script by: Ilang-Ilang Quijano
Directed by: Dr. Romeo F. Quijano
Produced by: PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK, PHILIPPINES and NAMANGKA (Peasant Organization, Digos, Dvo. Sur, Phils.)

The place was so barren and desolate, one would think that it was abandoned, except that the shabby huts and its impoverished inhabitants were impossible to miss. This is Kamukhaan, a community of 150 families in Davao del Sur, Mindanao, Philippines, whose people and their land for the past nineteen years have been facing a slow but certain death due to heavy exposure to pesticides. The entry of the GADECO banana plantation situated right next to it in 1981 marked the genesis of poisoning, sickness and poverty. Since then, the village has been cruelly subjected to large doses of pesticides the plantation utilizes for its own benefit. Through constant aerial and ground spraying, the people have been in direct contact with these chemicals for years, both their health and environment withering under their deadly mist. And while the perfectly healthy and unscathed bananas produced in the plantation are being shipped off to be enjoyed by foreign countries and major fruit canning industries, the people of Kamukhaan are left to pay the price...

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