📷: Harry and Mylah Roque
The Dutch immigration office, known as IND, has officially received complaints from 77 farmers from Bataan who filed corruption charges against Harry Roque with the Ombudsman in 2023.
Philippine-born Dutch citizen Joel Vega submitted additional information on April 16, which the IND confirmed receipt of through a digital form.
This information included copies of the Ombudsman charge sheets and supported a previous submission made to the IND on March 24.
The farmers initiated a class action lawsuit on January 23, 2023, accusing Roque, his wife Myla, and other individuals of serious misconduct, dishonesty, forgery, and falsification of public documents.
They alleged that they were unlawfully evicted from their 421-hectare farmland after discovering in 2020 that their land titles had been forged and transferred to First Bataan Mariveles Holdings Corp. (FBMH).
FBMH is a joint venture between Green Miles Realty Corp. and Biancham Holdings Corp., which the Roques established to develop a 1.5 billion-peso project associated with a POGO township in Mariveles.
This project was expected to generate around 25 billion pesos in revenue over five years, but its progress has been hindered by a ban on POGOs imposed last year.
Despite attempts by the farmers and Vega to obtain his comments, Roque has not responded.
However, he has claimed in his daily social media updates and during his party list election campaign that he is concerned about farmers’ interests.
The farmers expressed their disbelief in Roque, stating, “Hindi po kami naniniwala kay Roque. Nawalan po kami ng lupain at hanggang ngayon wala pong sagot sa aming kaso,” the farmers said.
“Heavily guarded po ngayon ang mga lupain namin,” they added. The farmers are currently squatting in a nearby beachfront property but have been facing eviction since late last year.
A petition urging the IND to consider relevant information that disputes Roque’s claim of political persecution in his political asylum bid was launched on March 21 and has so far collected 28,000 verified signatures. (ZIA LUNA)
