Farmers march, shave heads and stage hunger strike in Manila to press equitable distribution of lands to beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
Thousands of small farmers in the Philippines face a bleak 2009. A small group of them representing thousands more marched, demonstrated, staged a sit-in, shaved their heads, and went on hunger strike in a desperate last minute effort to win their land due to them under the Comprehensive Land Reform Act of the Philippines and the Constitution. They got nothing but were arrested and jailed for trespassing. From behind prison bars they called for help and with the help of some church people and a bishop fighting for social justice, they were freed.
The future of the land and the farmers is in the hands of the “landowner” law makers in the Philippine Senate and Congress. These legislators, most of them millionaires, are mostly landlords themselves, or their families and relatives are. As the “elected representatives”, not of the people, but of an oligarchy of powerful land owners, their task is to protect the business interests, land holdings and political position of their families or patrons.
These ruling families that feud among themselves and jockey for position and power have long controlled the wealth of the Philippines and have captured the system of government for their own interests and those of multinational corporations. Almost 80% of all arable land in the Philippines is still in the hands of the dynastic-ruling families. They have succeeded in blocking any meaningful land reform.
It is estimated that approximately 70% of all the wealth in the Philippines is owned or controlled by these powerful families. They are determined to hold on to what they consider to be their entitlement and traditional supremacy over the illiterate peasants in the feudal system inherited from the Spanish colonial regime.
Last December 2008, this age-old system fueled by greed and selfishness dashed the hopes of tenant farmers. The Senators strangled-to-death the failed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). They dealt a knock-out blow to the thousands of small farmers that hunger and thirst to cultivate their own lands in the hopes of a better life.
Last December, the Senators, voted on resolution 19, which in effect will permanently keep the 1.2 million hectares of rich food producing land for the wealthy landowners and share none of it with the poor. They did this by extending the present expiring law for six months and inserted provisions stating that there will be no new land acquisitions and none more distributed to the tenant farmers.
The farmers are impoverished because they give one-third of their crop to the landowner and pay the high cost of terminator seeds that have to be bought annually because they are designed not to reproduce themselves. They have to be bought yearly with the matching chemical fertilizer and pesticides made by a multinational corporation. They buy them from the landlord with a loan from the local bank, likely owned by the landlord’s family or friends. At harvest time they give one-third share to the owner to repay the loan and have nothing left. This unjust system is the greatest cause of poverty.
With no earnings many farmers have stopped growing rice; their children are forced to go abroad as domestic or factory workers and frequently exploited and abused.
But small mango farmers are an exception. The price of mangos has risen steadily in recent years, thanks to the breaking of a price fixing cartel and the just prices paid by Fair-Trade suppliers of dried fruit like Preda Fair-Trade. The Preda Fair-Trade project is famous for producing (with the processor Pro-food) chemical-free dried mango and the sugar-free dried mango.
These products are huge hits in supermarkets in Ireland and the UK and in world shops across Europe. They are recession proof. The love of chemical-free and sugar-free Preda dried mangos has helped boost the income of small farmers. They also get additional educational help for their children from the Preda project. A percentage of the earnings goes to help support children rescued from brothels and cruel prisons. With the death of land reform, the delicious Philippine mango is the one bright hope of the small Filipino farmers. (see www.preda.org and www.preda.net)
