This is what landless peasants of Negros Island, located in the heart of the Filipino archipelago, had to do to obtain a piece of land to cultivate. However, what they are asking for is only fair implementation of the CARP’s agrarian reform programme [1]. Initiated in 1988 for a ten-year duration, it has already been extended once and should normally become void by the end of 2008 without having achieved its goals of redistributing a part of the lands to peasant families.
When they became independent in 1946, the Filipinos inherited totally non-egalitarian land structures from the Spaniards and the Americans. Even today, in Negros, haciendas dominate the agricultural landscape. The peasants who work there are forced to distribute a major part of their crops to the landowners. Multinational companies specialize in exportation of crops such as sugar cane, rubber trees, banana or coconut trees, at the expense of food-producing crops. The peasants are hired as workers and the companies receive almost all of the considerable profits made from these crops. The island, nicknamed “Sugarlandia’’ [2], is considered as the heart of feudalism in the country.
Fasting, the last resort after the courts and the street
The hunger strike, which started last February by peasants of the Velez-Malaga hacienda in the Oriental Negros, is the last stage of their fight. For years, they have been promised lands by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). In 1996, this department decided that the hacienda should be integrated to the CARP programme, but the landowner Roberto J. Cuenca went to court to reverse this decision. The transfer of the lands was postponed. In 2002, the DAR allocated to 122 landless peasants collective land ownership title for 114 hectares, in Velez-Malaga. Many times it ordained the transfer of the 446 ha of lands to the 122 peasants, but Cuenca systematically blocked every stage.
Last January, the peasants tried to take possession of the lands which should legally be theirs, but the plantation guards opened fire. One peasant was killed and many others were injured. To face the deadlock they were dealing with, the peasants chose to settle in tents in front of the DAR, in Quezon, in Negros, and to start a hunger strike. According to the peasants’ union, Task Force Malapad [3], which has been backing them, “this settlement would not have been possible without the help of the defenders of peasants, religious groups, solidarity networks, students and artists.” Civil society as a whole was mobilized.
A victory for all defenders of the right to land
Nearly one month later, on 22nd March, Nasser Pangandaman, Minister for Agrarian Reform, promised them a settlement in the near future. They stopped their hunger strike to indicate their agreement and were preparing for the transfer. They were confronted by farmers backing the major landowner Roberto J. Cuenca, and forming a human barrier to prevent them reaching the land. The peasants were protected by more than 300 policemen and soldiers.
In spite of the transfer authorization granted by Pangandaman himself, the days following the settlement were characterized by new violence. Cuenca tried to appeal several times, new confrontations opposed the peasants and land workers with the hacienda’s guards. Following the death of two demonstrators in early June, the settlement went on in an understandably tense atmosphere. However, despite the complexity and albeit it is in a limited way, the re-appropriation is nevertheless taking place after a decade of a fierce battles both in the courts and in the street. It constitutes a victory for all the defenders of the right to land, and of agrarian reform in the world.
Also read: Resonances Asia N°15 - June 2007
