“Sa bawat pagdanak ng dugo ng mga magsasaka sa mga sakahan, sa bawat binubuwag nilang picket line ng mga manggagawa, at sa bawat maralita na tinatanggalan nila ng karapatan sa paninirahan, ay ang pag-usbong ng bagong salinlahi ng mga kabataang rebolusyonaryo na handang kumilos at manindigan, buhay man ay ialay!”—Alex Danday, Anakbayan spokesperson
By KEN E. CAGULA / Davao Today
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — A Lumad leader and a farmer-activist were gunned down in separate incidents in the province of Bukidnon.
On July 8, Datu Mario Agsab was shot dead in his home at Sitio Mainaga, Brgy. Iba, Cabanglasan, Bukidnon at around 7am by suspected members of paramilitary group Alamara and CAFGU members under the 8th Infantry Batallion.
According to Karapatan-Bukidnon, Agsab was an active leader of PIGYAYUNGA-AN, a local chapter of Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization in Cabanglasan, Bukidnon.
Two days earlier, the group also reported a similar shooting incident which targeted a member of KASAMA-Bukidnon, an affiliate of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).
Karapatan said that farmer Joel Anino was shot in his home in San Fernando town, Bukidnon by unidentified gunmen around 6:30am last July 6. He later died at the Malaybalay General Hospital.
Anino is the second member of KASAMA-Bukidnon killed this year.
Last June 16, 57-year-old farmer Liovigildo “Nonoy” Palma, also a member of KASAMA-Bukidnon, was killed by three suspects riding a single motorcycle just right outside his house at Barangay Halapitan, Sitio Malambago, San Fernando.
Datu Wilson Anglao Jr., secretary general of Karapatan-Bukidnon, condemned the growing number of killings in the province.
The group has already documented nine incidents of extrajudicial killings in Bukidnon in the middle of 2019.
Anglao attributed these killings to the implementation of Martial Law in Mindanao, which is expected to last until the end of this year.
“The [State] wants to silence anyone – especially the farmers here in Bukidnon – who is strongly calling for genuine agrarian reform in the country,” Anglao said.
Anglao said that they will bring these cases to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Region 10 to urge them to look into the human rights situation in the province. #
Contrary to her glowing description of her presidency and speakership as she announced her retirement from politics, farmers said House of Representatives (HOR) Speaker and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s legacy are laws detrimental to the people’s interests.
Responding to her valedictory at the last session of the HOR Tuesday, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said Arroyo led the approval of an endless string of anti-people policies and legislation, including the rice tarrification law, the lowering of the age of criminal liability, regressive taxes, revival of mandatory military training for minors, among others.
Arroyo said she will retire from politics after three decades after having been elected as senator, vice president, president and Pampanga representative.
Recalling her presidency and career in Congress with world leaders, Arroyo said she does not think she will have as dramatic a legacy as giants of world history such as United States President John Kennedy.
“I think my legacy will center around restoring our country’s fiscal stability after a storm of financial crisis here and abroad. Our fiscal reforms expanded resources for infrastructure and development, after which, as I said earlier, our poverty level went down from 39% to 26%” she said.
‘Good riddance’
The KMP said they welcome Arroyo’s retirement from politics as “good riddance.”
“She will continue to be known as among the most loathed public officials in history. Arroyo and her enabler Rodrigo Duterte deserve condemnation for all the anti-people policies they are implementing,” KMP chairperson emeritus and Anakpawis President Rafael Mariano said.
Mariano recalled that Arroyo’s speakership did nothing but ignore Anakpawis’ landmark bills.
“Under Arroyo’s helm in Congress, pro-people measures such as the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill and Php750 national minimum wage hike were snubbed and archived,” Mariano said.
Mariano added that Arroyo also
presided in the railroading of the refilled coco levy bill that reduced the
number of farmer-representatives to the Coconut Farmers and Industry
Development Trust Fund Committee from nine to only three last month.
“The coco levy bill approved by Congress will not
guarantee the return of the multibillion coco levy fund and assets to farmers.
Duterte and his allies will only gain control of the fund,” Mariano said.
Under the new coco levy bill, the trust fund committee will
have an annual capitalization budget of Php10-billion, the Coconut Farmers and
Industry Development Trust Fund Committee to be appointed by the President will
be composed of six representatives from government sector, two representatives
from the private coconut industry sector, and only three farmer-representatives.
The coco levy assets will be
privatized under the supervision of the Privatization Management Office, the
KMP added.
“These are not the demands of small coconut
farmers. Ito ang gusto ni Duterte kaya
ito ang sinunod ng Kongreso,” Mariano said.
“This long and drawn out battle for the return of the coco levy fund has burdened millions of small coconut farmers and their families. Many of them have died without actually benefiting from the coco levy fund,” the peasant leader said.
Estimated to be worth up to 150 billion pesos, the fund was levied from coconut farmers by the Ferdinand Marcos regime that the Supreme Court said belonged to them.
Mariano said small coconut farmers will continue to assert the genuine return of the fund.
‘Loathed politician’
Arroyo, daughter of former President Diosdado Macapagal, was the Phillippine president for nine years.
She took over the presidency from Joseph Estrada in 2001 after an uprising.
Her election in 2004 to a presidential term of her own was widely believed to be fraudulent, leading to massive protests and even ouster attempts by rebel soldiers.
During her reign, human rights group Karapatan reported 1,205 victims of extrajudicial killings and 206 victims of enforced disappearances.
She was also elected as Pampanga second district representative in 2010.
She was arrested and jailed for plunder in 2011 but was acquitted and freed in 2016.
In July 2017, she was elected as House Speaker in a controversial maneuver alleged to be orchestrated by Davao City mayor Sara Duterte who was at odds with then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
By Visayas Today
“I am begging our state forces, the police and military personnel, these killings must end.”
This was the earnest appeal Wednesday by San Carlos Bishop Gerardo Alminaza as controversy continues to hound the March 30 deaths in Negros Oriental of 14 men during a police operation that was initially dubbed an anti-crime drive but was later acknowledged to be targeted against alleged communist rebels.
Alminaza’s statement was read by Fr. Eduardo Laude, director for pastoral management of the San Carlos diocese, who represented the prelate at the Wednesday Roundtable at Lido hosted by journalist Melo Acuna, which discussed the Negros Oriental killings.
The bishop was in Cebu City for the launching of a movement that will campaign for an end to killings and other rights violations.
“This is very personal on my part,” Alminaza said in his statement.
“Fourteen people of our island perished in this barbaric operation. They are part of my flock, their deaths pierced my heart with pain,” he added.
“I share the collective suffering of the many families left by the barbaric arrogance of our state forces,” the bishop said.
“We are demanding peace based on justice,” he said.
In all, said Alminaza, 69 persons have died in what are believed to be politically motivated killings, a substantial number of these happening in his diocese in less than half a year in what he called a “continuing injustice.”
In October 20 last year, nine persons were massacred in a farmers’ protest camp in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, which is part of the diocese.
And on December 27, police mounted the predecessor to the March operation, Oplan Sauron, leaving six persons dead in Negros Oriental, five of these in Guihulngan City, again part of the diocese.
Of the 14 persons killed on March 30, eight were from Canlaon City, which also belongs to the San Carlos diocese.
Manjuyod town accounted for four of the dead, including two barangay captains, and Sta. Catalina, two more.
Laude told the forum that the diocese had immediately mounted an investigation into the March 30 deaths and said the accounts of eyewitnesses and the families of the slain disputed police claims that those who died were killed when they fought it out with officers serving search warrants.
He also pointed to alleged irregularities, saying witnesses told of police commandos concealing their faces in balaclavas and with no nameplates on their uniforms who “surrounded victims’ houses and forced their way inside without identifying themselves as enforcers or giving them a chance to read the warrants.”
In earlier interviews to media, families of the fatalities, who lived far from and did not know each other, gave similar accounts of what happened, all saying the raider forced them out of their houses or rooms and then executed the victims.
Laude also said all accounts noted that “no barangay officials were present at the time of entry or search,” and showed up “only hours after.”
But Philippine National Police director for police-community relations, Major General Benigno Durana Jr, immediately dismissed the church’s findings saying it was “not a competent or legitimate investigative body.”
“Any findings they have will not matter,” he stressed, even as he warned that, “if you peddle that it will create a biased perception against our legitimate police forces.”
But Laude clarified that they had tapped the services of lawyers in their investigation and also cooperated with the Commission on Human Rights. Durana also claimed that, while “some sectors would call (the fatalities) farmers,” these were “farmers with other activities” who “acted as tipsters” and, thus, were “either accessories or accomplices of terrorist groups,” referring to communist rebels behind the assassination or ambush of police personnel.
He insisted that accusations of human rights violations were “all lies” by “sectors who are front organizations” of the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army.
When CHR representative noted that, since the repeal of the Anti-Subversion Law, “belief in communism is not a crime” and that the farmers, had they committed any crimes, should have been tried, Durana accused him of “parroting the propaganda line of the CPP-NPA.”
Siapno protested this “unfair assertion” and stressed that the farmers enjoyed the presumption of innocence as much as the police operation was covered by the presumption of regularity.
He also stressed that even if police claimed the slain farmers were killed because they fought back, these “should be tried and go through our courts.”
Alminaza, meanwhile, minced no words in his statement, calling the police’s insistence that the farmers fought back “callous.”
The bishop pointed out that Negros has had “a long history of social struggle” and the island’s farmers possess “grate social awareness” as well as “experience defending our lives and rights.”
Citing the atrocities committed on the island by the police, military and paramilitary groups during the Marcos dictatorship, Alminaza said: “Here we are again calling to stop the attacks of violent and barbaric at the very hands of our state forces. Let me ask this again: What’s happening? Are we still observing law and order?”
Referencing the thousands of deaths from the government’s bloody campaign against narcotics, he noted that “the madness of the drug war has rippled into our farming communities, inflicting more harm to … our poor communities.”
“Why continue this madness? Why execute people by mere suspicion? Why shed blood just because of command from the mighty? Why? We demand answers,” Alminaza said as he reiterated an earlier warning for state security forces to “please make sure you are not adding more reasons for our people to get disillusioned with our government and peacekeepers that will make the best recruiters for the underground movement.”
COVER IMAGE: Journalist Melo Acuna, police Major General Benigno Durana Jr., Fr. Eduardo Laude and the CHR’s Marc Siapno discuss the March 30 killings of 14 persons during police operations in Negros Oriental at the Wednesday Roundtable at Lido. (image grabbed from video courtesy of Melo Acuna)
Ni Pia Montalban
Tinataras na natin ang araw
ng ating pagkakapiit.
Sinong makababatid
kung pagbibilang ba ito ng sakit
at pag-aabang ng higanti,
o kung pagkatanggap sa pinosas na bukas
at pagbibilang ng pagsuko ng imik,
sinong makapagsasabi
kung aling apoy ang nagpakulo
ng nagsusumabaw nating poot at galit?
Ang bilang ng paglalapit
ng bayan na remata’ng sinapit
o ang paglalagkit ng pait
sa ating mga nakaambang karit?
Si Nanay Monet Pajalla, 52 taong gulang at isang magsasaka sa Quezon, ay katulad ng ibang kababaihan na hikahos sa buhay.
Bukod sa kawalan ng lupa, patuloy na bumabagsak ang kita nila sa pagbebenta ng kopra. Isa rin si Nanay Monet sa matagal nang nag-hihintay na makuha ang ipinagkakait na coco levy fund noong panahon pa ni Marcos.
Tumitindi ang panunupil at pandarahas sa kanilang lugar sa Quezon kabilang na ang pagpaslang sa isang lider kababaihan noong Marso 2018 at malaganap na militarisasyon.
Sa kabila nito, patuloy ang grupo nila na nag-oorganisa at nagpapalakas ng kanilang hanay. (Bidyo ni: Joseph Cuevas/ Kodao)
Putragis amang! Kami’y namamalimos lamang ng kapirasong lupa
Bakit pinaputok ang kanilang sandata?
Hayup nga ba kaming hayup sa turing
Bakit kaming gutom, bala ang pinakain!
Putragis amang! Ang palasyo pala ay hindi dulugan ng awa
Ang kongreso pala’y kongreso ng panginoong may lupa
Saan namin hahanapin
Ang pangakong pag-laya?
Putragis amang! Huwag nila kaming itulak sa dingding
Mabangis sumalakay ang mga ginutom
Sa tagisan ng bagang kapag wala nang madurog na kanin
Huhulagpos ang malaong galit na kimkim!
Sumpain ang US!
Si Cory, si Starke, at mga katulad nila
Silang nagbibigay ng laya na busabusin ang paggawa
Silang nagpapahintulot sa mga panginoong may lupa!
O hari ng gatilyo, hukbo ng mga hukbo
Bayani ng mga bukirin
Idulot mong sa mga kamay namin
Madurog ang mga salarin!
Rice tariffication and uncontrolled rice imports will displace rice farmers and worsen food insecurity without solving the problem of expensive rice, research group IBON said.
The government is using high inflation to justify rice sector liberalization according to long-standing demands of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and big foreign agricultural exporters.
Domestic agriculture should be strengthened with ample government support instead of being prematurely opened up to cheap foreign government-subsidized imports from abroad, said IBON.
Senate Bill 1998 or the Rice Tariffication Bill, which was approved by the Philippine Senate on third and final reading recently, is currently undergoing bicameral deliberation.
Government said that this will protect the rice industry from volatile prices, and consumers from rising inflation.
The measure is also supposed to earn Php10 billion annually which will be used to fund development of the local rice industry.
IBON however stressed that uncontrolled rice imports will drive rice farmers into worse poverty.
If the Philippines imports two million metric tons of palay, for instance, some 500,000 of around 2.4 million rice farmers will be adversely affected.
Even the government’s own Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) projects a 29 percent decline in rice farmers’ incomes from a Php4-decrease in palay farm gate prices when rice tariffication is implemented.
As it is, farmers’ average monthly income of Php6,000 at the Php21 farmgate price is already far short even of the government’s understated Php9,064 average poverty threshold for a family of five.
It is also not even one-fourth (23 percent) of IBON’s estimated monthly family living wage (FLW) of Php26,026 for a family of five as of October 2018.
Filipino rice farmers are unproductive and domestically-produced rice is unnecessarily expensive because of long-standing government neglect of the agriculture sector.
No more than five percent of the national budget has been given to agriculture over the last two decades.
The Duterte administration does not correct this and, for instance, the Php49.8 billion 2019 Department of Agriculture (DA) budget it submitted to Congress in July is just 1.3 percent of the national budget and even Php862 million less that its cash-based equivalent of Php50.7 billion this year.
The hyped Php10 billion (US$190 million at current exchange rates) rice development fund of the Rice Tariffication Bill is too little and too late, said IBON.
This compares unfavorably to rice industry support given by other rice producers including some countries the Philippines imports rice from — Vietnam (US$400 million), United States (US$619 million annually), Thailand (US$2.2-4.4 billion), India (US$12 billion), Japan (US$16 billion), and China (US$12-37 billion).
IBON also pointed out that there is no guarantee that retail rice prices will be lower in the long run with unhampered importation.
Relying on rice imports makes the country vulnerable to higher world market prices as well as to rice production and export decisions of other countries.
In 2008, for instance, IBON recalled bow Vietnam, India and Pakistan restricted their rice exports amid rising global rice prices.
Thailand also raised the idea of creating a global rice cartel similar to that for oil exporting countries.
Government’s neoliberal prioritization of food imports and production of crops for export should be reversed, IBON said.
The Philippine government should instead strengthen the local rice industry. This begins with free land distribution to all willing tillers, followed by giving substantial support for rice producers, and taking control of the market to ensure reasonable prices for rice and other agricultural produce. #
Human rights advocates held a protest action in front of Camps Aguinaldo and Crame in Quezon City to denounce Saturday’s massacre in Hacienda Nene, Sagay City in Negros Occidental and the abduction of farmer-organizer Joey Flores Sr. in Nueva Ecija last week.
Nine farmers and farm workers, including 2 minors, were killed by suspected SCAA/CAFGU members of the 12th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in the northern Negros island city.
The protesters said they suspect Armed Forces of the Philippines-backed paramilitary and goons carried out the brutal attack.
The protesters also assailed the abduction of Joey Torres Sr., Bayan Muna’s peasant organizer in Central Luzon last week they say was by the Philippine Army. (Video by Joseph Cuevas/Kodao)
Hundreds of farmers and activists commemorate Peasant Month with a series of activities they call ‘October Resistance,’ in obvious reference to the so-called Red October plot the military tried selling off as a plan oust President Rodrigo Duterte.
Led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), a rally was held from University of Santo Tomas to Mendiola last Friday to call for an end to poverty, hunger as well “state fascism” by the Duterte government.
Protest actions were also launched in Tuguegarao City, Tagbilaran City, Laguna, Quezon, Camarines Norte, Bukidnon, Davao City and Cagayan de Oro.
The farmers said they demand genuine land reform, free land distribution and the pull-out of military troops from communities.
They also want to end land-grabbing and land use conversion schemes as well as a stop to plantations all over the country.
KMP Chairperson Danilo Ramos said that the ‘Red October’ plot scare of the government aims to justify human rights violations and intensify crackdown against peasant activists and organizers.
The group decried the recent human rights violations perpetrated by state forces. Among these is the killing of Jaime Delos Santos, chairman of the fisherfolk PAMALAKAYA (affiliated member of KMP) in Guihulngan Negros Oriental last October 6, as well as the killing of Victor Villafranca, also member of PAMALAKAYA’s HABAGAT or Haligi ng Batanguenong Anakdagat in Lian Batangas, last October 13.
They also assailed the violent dispersal of their camp out at the Department of Agrarian Reform last Thursday. # (Report and video by Joseph Cuevas with Maricon Montajes)