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ARTICLES / ESSAYS
Nov. 30 update: Yesterday, the country was again alarmed with another display of current administration's political insecurity. The overkill response of the government in having massive arrest of civilians and media people worsened when the President imposed a curfew hour from 12 midnight to 5 a.m. in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, including Laguna where the Sumilao farmers are currently walking. The 50th day of the Walk for Sumilao Land, Walk for Justice Campaign was devoted for a whole day reflection/learning session. The farmers, together with some other support groups who were listening, were passionately discussing and sharing their insights on their experiences, struggles and how they miss their families in Sumilao, Bukidnon. There was a unanimous feeling that everyday is a learning experience for the Sumilao farmers. They learned that farmers across the country, regardless of the crops or fruits produced, share the same issues, concerns and disappointments as regards the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. They also realized that the present administration seemed not giving importance and enough attention to the plights of the small farmers. While in the middle of their reflection, the news of the walk out of the Magdalo group came to their knowledge. Because of the seriousness of the event, they decided to cut short their reflection and listened to the news. Then suddenly came the breaking news that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued an order imposing curfew. This news made the farmers to convene formally. They are currently in Laguna and affected by the said curfew order. Normally, they start their everyday walk at around 4 a.m. But because of the said curfew order, they deliberated among themselves whether or not they will abide with the order, or stay in the premises where they were resting and left after 5 a.m. After almost an hour of discussion weighing the pros and cons of the matter, the farmers decided to stick with their original plan and start the following day walk at 4 a.m. They said that government repressions and infringement of basic human rights will not hinder them to continue their struggle. They do not intend to obey the curfew order but instead claimed that such order is yet another human rights violations committed by the present administration. The farmers are still determined to walk until they reach Malacañang and the DAR Central Office based on their original plan. They have gone this far and no one can hinder their cause until justice is served. This has been the fight of the Sumilao farmers for more than a decade. In fact, as they reminisce, Janjan Tuminhay, 22 years old, said that it is still fresh in his mind what had happened during the hunger strike 10 years ago when his father joined that activity. Ten years after, he is with his father with the same issue. Then Joey Racana, 27, married and with three children, said that he never intended to pass their struggle to his children, just what happened to him. When they were kids, their parents were fighting to reclaim their land and now that they are grown ups, they are with their parents fighting for the same cause. Joey does not want this to happen to his children and to the next Higaonon generation. Call of the Sumilao Farmers: Reform and Extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)! It has been 19 years since the enactment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), yet, the fruits of agrarian reform remain to be seen, or to put it squarely, now mostly belongs to Cojuangco and his hogs. The government has reported an accomplishment of a seemingly impressive 6.4 million hectares – or 79.4 percent of the target CARP scope of 8.1 million hectares from 1972 to 2005. However, the figures were computed in such a way as to falsely depict the true situation of agrarian reform in the country. The "accomplishments" include lands with registered CLOAs but which have not been turned over to tenants. There is double counting where collective CLOAs and the individual CLOAs are both tallied. In the most brazen cases, there are CLOA holders who still do not occupy the lands. In other instances, titles which have been distributed and accounted for as accomplishment are eventually cancelled On top of that, the government's original target scope of 10.3 million hectares in 1988 was severely reduced in 1996 to 8.1 million hectares to accommodate large-scale exemptions and massive land conversions. More than 5.3 million hectares of land were exempted outright from CARP in 1996. The reductions in the scope of public land in turn accommodated vast tracts of government land leased or otherwise controlled by big landlords as cattle ranches, export crop plantations and logging concessions. Taken as a whole, there are more than 10.2 million marginal farmers, tenants and farm workers, 70 percent of whom are still landless even at the closing stages of CARP. The recent moves of President Arroyo and our legislators fail to clue us in on the President's stance with respect to CARP and on whether or not Congress may give CARP another extension: CARP has been lumped with other asset reform programs of the government such as urban land and ancestral domain instead of the usual separate chapter in the recent Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP); the target for land acquisition and distribution (LAD) of private agricultural lands has been reduced to only 100,000 hectares per year; and the legal moves by Congress to stop CARP, to wit, exemptions of big prawn farms, fish ponds and aquaculture areas from CARP coverage, foreign investors' leasing of private lands for up to 75 years, and the proposed 25-year moratorium on CARP implementation in the Mindanao region. This indicates the Arroyo administration's abandonment of the Constitutional mandate on agrarian reform as provided in Section 4, Article XII of the Constitution, to wit: "The State shall, by law, undertaken an agrarian reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or in the case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as the Congress may prescribe, taking into account ecological, developmental, or equity considerations, and subject to the payment of just compensation. In determining retention limits, the State shall respect the right of small landowners. The State shall further provide incentives for voluntary land-sharing." The struggle of the Sumilao farmers will be brought to naught unless the agrarian reform program will be extended beyond 2008 and a genuine implementation of land acquisition and distribution (LAD) will be had. Support Groups:
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