Agricultural Workers Condemn Officer’s Inclusion in Poster of Armed Rebels in Negros

 The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) condemns the inclusion of its Secretary General, John “Butch” Milton Lozande, National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW-Negros) Secretary General, Christian Tuayon and other members of progressive organizations in a poster posted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) of armed rebels in Moises Padilla and other parts of Negros Occidental on April 17. NFSW is a member of UMA.

According to UMA Sec. Gen. Butch Lozande, this comes at a time when Sr. Patricia Fox, who is a volunteer of the agricultural workers organization, was recently detained by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and still under investigation for her work and solidarity with the poor in the country.

This includes assisting the sugar workers in Negros, Hacienda Luisita, and the sacadas from Mindanao who were trafficked in said sugar plantation.

Earlier, Mr. Lozande added, a number of members of KAISAHAN-Batangas, which is also a member organization of UMA were included in the list of alleged terrorists by the Duterte-regime.

Other than that, two National Council members of UMA from Cagayan Valley, namely Reynaldo Gameng and Cita Managuelod were also vilified on April 2, when flyers were purportedly distributed by the military and its agents in Isabela and tagged them and 8 others as “minions of godless communists” and “terrorists.”

It is very clear that there is a growing trend towards cracking down on all critics of President Duterte’s regime including agricultural workers who are advocating for genuine land reform, decent wages and benefits, and for their human rights.

Most of those killed other than the war on drugs are peasants, including agricultural workers and indigenous peoples related to land issues.

It is not far-fetched to say that this would lead to the declaration of martial law in the whole country.

This could still be avoided, if President Duterte is really sincere in his proposal to resume the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), adhering to instead of violating the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHIHL), and signing the proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms or CASER.

In the meantime, UMA and its member organizations together with other allied organizations will continue to strengthen itself to fend off fascist attacks by the Duterte regime, while at the same time implementing genuine agrarian reform through its land cultivation areas and “bungkalan” and campaigning for better wages and benefits. And in the long run struggling for the nationalist and democratic aspirations of the Filipino people.

Poster posted by the Philippine National Police (PNP)

UMA Condemns Military for Tagging Negros Agricultural Workers as Rebels

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) condemns Brigadier General Eliezer Losañes, 303rd commanding officer of the Philippine Army for stating that agricultural workers and farmers who are asserting their rights to their lands through Land Cultivation Areas (LCA) in Negros Occidental as rebels.

According to John “Butch” Milton Lozande, secretary general of UMA, the general’s statement is like that of despotic hacienderos who have for centuries lorded it over the sugar industry in Negros at the expense of the sweat and blood of sugar workers. That is the reason why Negros has been described as a social volcano waiting to explode.

Even the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) reports that of the 424,130 hectares of sugar lands in Negros Island, 33.99% of these are lands with 50 hectares or more owned by only 1,860 big landlords (hacienderos), 30% with 10 to 50 hectares are owned by just 6,820 big and small landlords, and the majority of 53,320 farmers and agricultural workers only own 36% of the sugar lands.

At the same time, in 2007 the Negros Occidental Provincial Government conducted a survey, in which it was found that 41% of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) in the province are no longer in possession of the lands awarded to them (25,336 out of 61,375 ARBs surveyed) due mainly to lack of support services and non-land support facilities that forced ARBs to lease their land.

The National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) which is a member of UMA estimates that this figure has reached 70% this year. While CARP implementation was only at 40%.

Sugar workers in haciendas (plantations), on the average, receive a measly P500 to P750 weekly wages all year round.  Minimum wage is pegged at only P245 per day for the farm workers but in many haciendas, P80-P120 a day is still prevalent.

Not less than 93% of workers in haciendas engage in “pakyaw system” that provides meager income resulting to ARBs not being able to have adequate food on their table and send their children to school. Many also have no SSS and other government-mandated benefits.

This is the reason why the NFSW and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)-Negros launched the Land Cultivation Area (LCA) or “bungkalan” campaign, especially among sugar workers who have to endure the tiempo muerto (dead season) which lasts for up to five months.

As NFSW has stated quite clearly, the goal of setting up land cultivation areas is to ward off the inevitable hunger brought by the Tiempo Muerto on properties covered by agrarian reform but which remain undistributed and idle, planting these with vegetables, banana, corn and root crops to feed their families.

So if the military under Brigadier General Eliezer Losañes or whoever from this fascist institution wants to unleash the wrath of the social volcano in Negros, let them.

NFSW has never cowed, even when martial law was declared in 1972. It even grew stronger despite numerous human rights violations inflicted on their members, including the Escalante massacre. It is not cowed with the military’s dangerous remarks on its LCA’s and it will always prevail together with the rest of the Filipino peasantry and its allied masses against oppression and exploitation.