SUGAR WORKERS: FASCISTS MAKE MONEY OUT OF UNION-BUSTING

Press statement – July 8, 2021 – UMA

Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA – Federation of Agricultural Workers) stands with the sugar workers of Isabela in denouncing the Philippine Army’s fake “Community Support Program” in Sta. Maria. State armed forces, particularly the 5th Infantry Division, have militarized the civilian community with house-to-house harassment, redtagging, and union-busting under the guise of peace-keeping, serving the interests of labor rights-violator Martin Lorenzo of Green Future Innovations, Inc. (GFII).

“The local sugar workers are correct in saying that CSP stands for ‘Community Suppression Program.’ It is Lorenzo’s violent greed that enjoys the military’s support, not the community’s needs,” declared UMA chairperson Antonio “Ka Tonying” Flores. “The 5th ID has brazenly accused members of UMA – Isabela of being affiliated with the New People’s Army (NPA). Such fascists wish to make money off the workers’ vilification and arrest, if not murder. This is union-busting of the most vicious kind, and it tramples on the internationally regarded right to association.”

FAKE SURRENDER, GENUINE RESISTANCE

In a show of force that violates International Humanitarian Law, soldiers have been encamped in the barangay hall of Brgy. San Antonio since June 7. This was followed by Sta. Maria police’s interrogation of local UMA leaders regarding relief operations conducted by the labor federation to assist victims of Typhoon Ulysses late last year; the policemen went as far as forbidding the workers from joining UMA’s activities. Then beginning June 14, soldiers of the 95th Infantry Battalion, led by a certain Lt. Erwin Babas, went house to house to profile members of the local UMA chapter, slander the federation, and threaten the sugar workers.

Military harassment peaked on June 20 when soldiers staged a gathering in Brgy. Calamagui North in a ploy to frame civilian sugar workers as armed revolutionaries of the NPA, then claim credit for their supposed surrender. As early as June 18, state forces had demanded local UMA leaders to appear on the scheduled face-off as a chance to clear their names and disaffiliate with UMA, as if UMA were an underground or even criminal organization. Then on the morning of the date itself, Lt. Babas threatened UMA leader Dominga Aberion that the workers’ absence at the gathering would be read as proof of their affiliation with the NPA.

To the ire of the military, none of the workers appeared on the 20th, in spite of Lt. Babas’ threat. Their failure to stage a fake surrender forced the soldiers to return a week later and demand an explanation from the sugar workers. The soldiers even rebuked them for their complaints online about military harassment, as if union-busting were an acceptable norm. The local UMA chapter only continued to assert their legitimacy, explaining that they were duly recognized by the Department of Labor and Employment, and engaged only in righteous struggles in advance of their rights as sugar workers.

FAKE SUPPORT, GENUINE GRIEVANCES

“CSP is an insult to sugar workers with real and pressing concerns about job insecurity, low wages, and lack of social protections. In spite of their honest work and legitimate organization, the fascists can only respond with the dishonesty of fake support and baseless slander,” lamented Ka Tonying. “Had the S in CSP genuinely been ‘support,’ it would have goaded authorities to look into the mass layoff conducted by Lorenzo and the below-minimum pay received by workers for 12-16 hours of back-breaking work. But instead of serving the people, the army would rather serve Lorenzo as his private goons in suppressing his workers’ dissent.”

CSP is a counter-insurgency measure advanced by Executive Order 70 (EO70) as well as the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). In tandem with the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP), it receives state funding to purportedly help address the roots of armed conflict, providing livelihoods that address poverty in the countryside while facilitating the surrender of armed revolutionaries to re-integrate them into civilian life. But its history is marred with consistent anecdotes of illegal arrests, groundless accusations, and relentless attacks on civilians, thwarting its own purpose.

“The beneficiaries of CSP and E-CLIP are not the rural poor but the fascists,” groaned Ka Tonying. “Army units receive monetary rewards for dismantling guerrilla fronts, even if these fronts exist only in their minds. They fantasize that the arrest or surrender of civilians they’ve framed as red fighters will lend credibility to the government’s deadly counter-insurgency program, earning the fascist regime the approval of imperialists who are more than happy to bust unions, silence workers, and suppress the peasant and labor movements to protect their investments at our expense.”

According to UMA, the fact that military personnel made a lucrative enterprise out of union-busting proved that rural communities must be demilitarized. It also pointed to the bankruptcy of EO70, as well as that of the NTF-ELCAC, which wastes state resources on attacking civilian peasants and workers. This further underscored the urgency of UMA’s complaint last June to the International Labor Organization that the Duterte regime was involved in grave violations of labor rights, particularly the right to association. Duterte’s peasant death toll of 336—among them 27 agricultural workers—testified to the necessity of ousting him from power.

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For reference:

Gi Estrada – Media Officer – 09179450552

Act on Isabela Sugar Workers Harassment and Woes First, Agricultural Workers on Philippines Assuming Chairmanship of ILO Government Group

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) today asked Secretary of Labor Silvestre Bello III to act on the harassment of state security forces and the Green Future Innovations Incorporated (GFII) on Isabela sugar workers and their woes before assuming the chairmanship of the International Labor Organization (ILO) government group.

According to UMA chairperson Antonio “Ka Tonying” Flores, Sec. Bello has not even bothered to acknowledge receipt of a letter from UMA dated June 21, 2021 to take action against the military, police, and GFII for violating the rights of the workers from Sta. Maria, Isabela. Ironically, the Secretary himself is from said province.

Ka Tonying added, how can the Secretary of Labor in assuming the chairmanship of the government group, be able to be in a key position in the setting of global labor standards when he cannot even act on the complaints of sugar workers from his own province whose labor standards are so terrible?

In UMA’s letter to Sec. Bello, it described how its chapter in Sta. Maria, Isabela had been harassed, threatened and intimidated first by their employer Green Future Innovations Incorporated (GFII) and then by the Philippine National Police (PNP) followed by the elements of the 95th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army.

This is just after UMA Isabela filed a complaint at the Provincial Council of Sta. Maria on May 25 for violation of the minimum wage law by GFII. Said company is a bio-ethanol plant, now owned by Martin Lorenzo. GFII threatened members of UMA Isabela with death threats and mass dismissal if said complaint would be pursued.

The actual wage paid by GFII in year 2020 reached only from P16-50 for weeding, P40 – P70 for planting, P150 for fertilizer application, P75 for patching, P63 for de-strussing, P94 for cleaning of underbrush and re-cutting and P250 for harvesting for a whole days work. The daily minimum wage for agricultural workers in Region 2 is P345.

Secretary Bello, however as best as he tries to, can never escape the issue of the sugar workers in Sta. Maria. UMA and the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) included their said case to the complaint jointly submitted by said organizations to the ILO on June 22, 2021 for violation of the freedom of association of agricultural workers including extra judicial killings on their ranks.

Source Verification:

Gi Estrada – Media Officer

09179450552

CONDEMN THE MILITARY’S HARASSMENT OF SUGAR WORKERS IN ISABELA!

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“The spate of attacks by the Philippine Army on sugar workers in Isabela demonstrates the urgency of our complaint to the ILO,” declared Antonio Flores, chairperson of Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA). “The Duterte regime is using the full might of state armed forces to suppress sugar workers from exercising their right to association. This isn’t just union-busting. It’s full-blown state terrorism.”

On June 23, UMA and the National Federation of Sugar Workers staged a press conference to announce their submission of a complaint to the International Labor Organization (ILO) regarding grave labor rights violations committed by the Duterte regime. Among the instances of state terrorism condemned was the 95th Infantry Battalion’s harassment of UMA – Sta. Maria which persists to this day.

At the press-con, Cita Manguelod of UMA – Isabela narrated that their protests demanding reinstatement, job security, higher wages, and employment benefits at a sugarcane plantation run by the Lorenzo-owned Green Future Innovations, Inc. (GFII) were met with vilification and threats of violence by state armed forces. GFII has been producing bioethanol from sugarcane harvested from cane fields leased to the corporation by Mayor Hilario Pagauitan.

Since June 16, soldiers from the 95th IB have been visiting selected sugar workers daily, interrogating them about UMA’s typhoon-related relief operations and claiming they had links to the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the revolutionary Communist Party of the Philippines. The soldiers even made Dominga Aberion, UMA – Sta. Maria’s secretary general, accompany them in their house-to-house harassment.

An attempt to frame them as rebel surrenderees was thwarted last June 20, when several unionists refused to follow the 95th IB’s instruction to clear their names at the barangay hall in Brgy. Calamagui North. A week later, June 27, another attempt to frame them as surrenderees took place in Brgy. Bangad. In their frustration, soldiers went back to Brgy. Bangad today to instruct the officials to call on UMA’s leaders and demand an explanation for their protests against military harassment.

“The sugar workers of Isabela have been organizing to protest their humiliating daily wage of P15 and demand that Lorenzo at least pay them the regional minimum wage of P340. Many of them don’t even have access to the Social Amelioration Program for sugar workers, and to the Social Amelioration and Welfare Fund for producers of bioethanol,” lamented Flores. “Only mercenaries hungry for a cut from Lorenzo’s blood money could trample on the unionism of such hardworking but destitute sugar workers.”

The peasant leader called on the ILO to pressure the Department of Labor and Employment to engage with them in person, given the urgency of the matter, and in the soonest time possible. He also called on formations of peasant advocates and human rights defenders to stand with oppressed sugar workers facing heightened abuse from corporations enjoying the protection of Duterte’s thugs in the police and the military.

AGRI-WORKERS LODGE COMPLAINT AGAINST DUTERTE AT INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION

Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA – Federation of Agricultural Workers) and the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) have submitted to the International Labor Organization (ILO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland a formal complaint against several labor rights violations committed by the Duterte regime in the Philippines since 2016.

“As anti-communist witch-hunts by state armed forces intensify, so do false accusations against labor unionists spread,” narrated UMA chairperson Antonio Flores and NFSW secretary general Butch Lozande. “Agricultural workers are framed as guerilla fighters, for which we are vilified, harassed, arrested, and even killed. The assault on our freedom of association has been an assault on our lives and our livelihoods.”

SLAVE WAGES, LAND-GRABS AGGRAVATED BY STATE TERRORISM

UMA and NFSW’s complaint explained that the majority of unjustly accosted and extrajudicially murdered workers in the Philippines hailed from the agricultural sector. Peasants, after all, still made up the majority of the population, and their status as low-wage agricultural workers was the direct result of land-grabs facilitated by sham land-reform programs such as the Aquino-crafted and Arroyo-extended Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that Duterte continued to implement.

“The struggle of the Filipino agricultural worker is two-fold: one, for living wages and better working conditions, and two, for land withheld from them. In pursuit of these, agricultural workers form unions and associations, availing themselves of political rights—especially the right to unionize—guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution to help them secure their economic rights,” continued Flores and Lozande. “But the Duterte regime has gone full fascist on agricultural workers’ organizations, scheming to maintain slave wages and landlessness for landlords and corporations to make the most of their misery.”

The complaint noted that, of the political killings among workers, those of agricultural workers numbered the most. Agri-worker unions and associations have been surveilled, demonized, and red-tagged as fronts of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the underground Communist Party of the Philippines. State agents would go as far as accuse members of UMA and NFSW as terrorists, fabricating legal charges against them on the strength of evidence planted by the police and the military themselves. Leaders have been suppressed while members are coerced to disaffiliate, if not killed. Unionists targeted are made examples out of, creating a chilling effect and eroding the right to associate.

ILO INTERVENTION NECESSARY, URGENT

“We have deemed it urgent to lodge our complaint at the ILO. Complaints filed in local courts are met not only with vulgar inaction, but with violent retaliation by local authorities,” lamented Flores. “Even progressive lawyers who volunteered to take on cases on behalf of aggrieved families have been targeted. Atty. Kathy Panguban, who defended victims of the high-profile Sagay Massacre case in 2018, was accused of kidnapping for tending to a child survivor. Atty. Ben Ramos, who used to take on land-dispute cases for agrarian reform beneficiaries, was shot to death on the same island a month later.”

While UMA and NFSW welcomed labor secretary Silvestre Bello III’s acceptance of the ILO’s tripartite mission to look into allegations of drastic labor rights violations, the labor groups rejected the labor department’s preference to conduct such a sensitive engagement virtually. According to Flores and Lozande, the matter was too high-level to settle for online interactions and investigation.

“The Duterte regime is turning the country into a killing field, and state armed forces are watering the soil with the blood of workers for the growth of nothing else but profit,” the labor leaders concluded. “We urge the ILO to consider our complaint with the same urgency with which we have gathered the necessary data to write it. As the International Criminal Court investigates Duterte’s crimes against humanity in the conduct of his fake war on drugs, may the ILO find him culpable of labor rights violations that have resulted in the irretrievable loss of lives.”

#StopTheAttacks

#UnionismIsNotTerrorism

#HandsOffUnionists

#WakasanNa

Agricultural Workers Condemn Terrorist Listing of its Officer and Members

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) and National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) condemn the terrorist listing by the Duterte regime on 600 persons including five members of Kaisahan-Batangas, among which is an officer of the NFSW. Kaisahan is a member of UMA.

Their inclusion in the list is reprehensible, considering that the local prosecutor had earlier dropped the case filed against them for lack of evidence.

These 5 are part of the so-called Nasugbu 10, a quick reaction team (QRT) to investigate human rights violations in Utod village, Nasugbu, Batangas as a result of an earlier encounter between the military and the New Peoples’ Army (NPA).

They never made it to Utod, as nine of them were arrested on Nov. 20, by the Philippine National Police and soldiers of the 730th Combat Group of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) who branded them as NPA members.

The members of Kaisahan ng mga Manggagawang-bukid sa Batangas (Kaisahan) are Marilyn Hernandez, Carlos Sanosa, Joey Castillano, Roberto Hernandez, and Leonardo delos Reyes Jr. Four others are members of HABAGAT, and one their driver. Marilyn is also the treasurer of NFSW.

This terrorist listing is a desperate attempt by the Duterte regime to crack down on its critics, including that of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the latter through impeachment.

According to John “Butch” Milton Lozande, secretary general both of UMA and NFSW they are not intimidated by this terror listing of the Duterte government.

He added “NFSW was not cowed when martial law was declared a year after its formation in 1971. We only had members in Negros Island then. Today we are once again national in nature with the rest of the Filipino people who are resolute in resisting further oppression and state repression.”

Agriworkers condemn attack on Negros rights mission

 

Agriworkers led by the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) and the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) vehemently condemn the gun attack on human rights activists conducting a fact-finding mission in Bayawan City, Negros Oriental, yesterday afternoon (November 28).

The shooting incident resulted in the death of two members of the mission, Elisa Badayos, 59, and her companion, tricycle driver Eleoterio Moises. A youth activist was also reportedly injured.

UMA Secretary General John Milton “Butch” Lozande said that “The killing of human rights activists underscores the prevailing reign of terror in Negros Oriental. Duterte’s threats to go after legal activists have emboldened those behind the brutal killings in Negros and all other areas in the country plagued by impunity.”

According to Danilo Tabura of NFSW-Negros, activists and ordinary farmers like Badayos and Moises are common targets of Duterte’s crackdown.

Badayos, coordinator of Karapatan Negros Oriental, was no stranger to state fascism. Her husband, labor leader Jimmy Badayos was forcibly disappeared by the military in 1990. Their daughter Jimmylisa was also a victim of unlawful arrest and trumped-up charges in 2012. Elisa herself was slapped with several fabricated criminal charges in 2015.

Meanwhile, Moises was a barangay tanod and member of local peasant organization Mantapi Ebwan Farmers Association. The other injured victim was identified to be a member of Kabataan Partylist in Cebu City.

“Duterte’s threats translating into actual atrocities like this send a chilling effect to the public. The fascist regime wants victims and survivors to succumb to fear now that even human rights defenders have become targets of attacks. It does not tolerate the investigation of rights violations by state security forces not only in Negros but in other critical areas,” said Lozande, who likened the incident to Marcosian Martial Law tactics and Palparan-style terror during the Arroyo regime.

The mission, composed of 30 activists from Central Visayas, aimed to document the spate of extra-judicial killings (EJK), threats and harassment in Bayawan City and Santa Catalina. It was reported that the Philippine National Police (PNP) deployed additional combat troops in the province.

Negros Oriental was earlier in the news due to the spate of political killings in Guihulngan City, where human rights groups documented eight victims of EJK since July 2017.

“Following Duterte’s murderous rhetoric, state forces target unnarmed civilians and legal activists whom they believe are supporters of the New People’s Army. After the police suffered heavy casualties and humilitation for the July 21 ambush of the NPA in Guihulngan, state forces are disposed to retaliate and harass ordinary farmers and civilians,” said Lozande.

“Duterte and his mercenary police and military attack dogs are terribly mistaken if they think that the peasant movement will simply bow down to terror after this terrible incident. We have no choice but to continue to fight for justice. All human rights defenders and freedom-loving people here and abroad should condemn this latest atrocity of the US-Duterte fascist regime,” said Tabura.

‘October Revolution Centennial Celebration’ rouses Metro Cebu

Young cultural activists perform at the Plaza Independencia, Cebu City as part of the October Revolution Centennial Celebration. (Photo CTTO)

CEBU CITY – Heavy rain failed to dampen the spirits of a hundred flag bearers accompanied by thousands of working people who marched the streets of Metro Cebu early evening yesterday, October 19.

The marchers waved a hundred red flags with the communist hammer and sickle insignia from the Fuente Osmena rotunda, through the busy Colon intersection and through the Plaza Independencia public park, where delegates of the Lakbayan ng Visayas inter-island protest caravan held a rousing program to open the October Revolution Centennial Celebrations (ORCC) here in the city.

“Many of you may have been startled to see these flags out in the open. For so long, this (hammer and sickle) symbol of workers and peasants has been demonized by oppressors and imperialists,” John Ruiz of Bayan Muna Central Visayas said in his opening speech.

“The Filipino toiling masses turn to the historic victory of the Russian revolution for invaluable lessons to guide our own struggle for national democracy and socialism,” said John Milton Lozande, Secretary General of Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), the national political center of militant agricultural workers’ unions and associations in haciendas and plantations.

Filipino activists are among progressives and revolutionaries all over the world who continue to draw inspiration from the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 led by Vladimir Lenin in Russia. The 1917 revolution established the first socialist state in the world.

“The revolutionaries who established socialist states such as the former USSR freed a significant fraction of the world’s working peoples from the clutches of class oppression. This historical fact is obscured and disparaged by the dominant bourgeois and imperialist discourse, but the toiling masses can only find hope, reason and perspective in the revolutionary proletarian standpoint exemplified by Lenin,” added Lozande.

The Philippine ORCC had its public launch on May 5, 2017 at the University of the Philippines, Diliman led by the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and Bagong Alyansang Bayan (BAYAN). Since then, various activities such as study conferences, solidarity activities, and cultural presentations were held to bolster the ORCC. UMA is a member organization of ILPS and BAYAN.

Here in Cebu, several activist cultural groups from the ranks of young farmers and agricultural workers of Negros, Cebu and Bohol performed theatrical presentations to celebrate the working peoples’ struggle for land, justice and peace. Among these groups are Bansiwag of Bohol, Teatro Obrero, associated with the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), Teatro Kaling, and Teatro Bungkal of Negros Occidental, whose troupe performed a 45-minute dance and movement cycle detailing the history of Negros and the continuing struggle of its toiling masses.

The performances were met with resounding applause and cheering from the audience composed mainly of poor peasants and workers, with students, church people, educators and other supporters of the Lakbayan. The program ended around 11:00 in the evening with the singing of the Filipino version of the Internationale, the anthem of the international working class movement.

“The victory of the October Revolution reminds us that the human race must not settle for the mad world that the moribund capitalist system supports – a world of brutality and decadence, unending wars, plunder, and famine founded on exploitation and oppression.”

“We will continue to fight imperialism and its neoliberal attacks to advance the struggle for national democracy – for genuine land reform, national industrialization, and social justice. Workers believe that with a socialist perspective, another world is definitely possible.” ended Lozande.

The Lakbayan ng Visayas will culminate in a big mobilization today, October 20. The ORCC will also be a main feature of the #LakbayMagsasaka Pambansang Lakbayan ng Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Laban sa Pasismo to be held from October 23-25 in Manila.

#LakbayMagsasaka | Protests hound agencies in Cebu for neglect of Visayan farmers

Huge Lakbayan contingent temporarily blocked by security men near the US Consulate in Cebu Ciy.  Photo: Aninaw Productions

Thousands of farmers belonging to the Lakbayan ng Visayas inter-island protest caravan swarmed the streets of Cebu today to decry government neglect of Visayan farmers.

Tenant farmers, fisherfolk, and sugar workers from the Visayas are among the most destitute in the country. The Lakbayan protests emphasized that Duterte’s unfulfilled campaign promises, and the neoliberal policies and imperialist impositions in the economy cause further dislocation and extreme poverty in local peasant communities.

Over a thousand sugar farmworkers from Negros under the National Federation of Sugar Workers-Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (NFSW-UMA) spilled to the streets as they occupied the façade of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Region VII office.

According to John Milton Lozande, UMA Secretary General, sugar workers decry the DOLE’s performance, if not outright complicity in the anomalous implementation of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) in the sugar industry.

SAP is a government program enacted in 1991 through RA 6982. It provides for bonuses, benefits and socio-economic programs for sugar workers. During the dialogue with DOLE officials, NFSW Chairperson Rolando Rillo said that most sugar workers in the region, including Negros Oriental and Northern Cebu, report that they do not receive any form of assistance from the program.

“Our problem with SAP is much like the coco levy and tobacco excise tax which the Marcoses have plundered. The government exacts a levy from sugar produce supposedly to help the workers, but our poor farmworkers have no way of taking direct control of the funds,” he said.

Rillo added that for the longest time, SAP funds were used by big landlords and sugar barons to further reinforce the feudal patronage system and to fund the private armies of hacienderos that augment militarization in the countryside. A similar program to SAP was first enacted in the 1950s, but was also institutionalized during Martial Law and favored Marcos cronies in the sugar industry.

Meanwhile, Lakbayan protesters also trooped to other government agencies this morning. Farmers from HUMABOL-Bohol and KMP-Cebu held a picket at the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) to highlight President Duterte’s empty promise of free irrigation to farmers. Local peasant groups and fisherfolk from Pamalakaya held a dialogue with DENR officials to decry reclamation programs, rampant land use conversion and the anti-people No Build Zone policy. Protests and dialogues with the Department of Agriculture (DA), Bureau of Fisheries and other agencies are scheduled for this afternoon.

IMPERYALISMO, IBAGSAK!     

The Lakbayan protests merged this morning at the US Consulate with the call to end lopsided trade agreements affecting agriculture, US military exercises and military basing across the country and other neoliberal attacks against the Filipino people.

“The Duterte regime has proven itself beholden to US imperialist dictates,” said Rillo.  “His slogans for an independent foreign policy now rings hollow. He bows down to the US by doing nothing to change US hegemony in the country, while also making our economy increasingly dependent on multi-billion loans from China and other big powers,” he added.

“The country will remain backward and our farmers impoverished without genuine land reform. The feudal set-up in the countryside provides continued basis for imperialist leeches to fester,” he ended.

The Visayas Lakbayan will culminate here in Cebu tomorrow, October 20, while farmers led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) from Mindanao, Bicol, Southern Tagalog and North and Central Luzon regions will continue to march to Manila for the #LakbayMagsasaka Pambansang Lakbayan para sa Lupa at Laban sa Pasismo from October 23-25.

 

Farmers, Church groups unite for genuine land reform and an end to extrajudicial killings

INTRAMUROS, MANILA  — Various farmers organizations, religious leaders, Church-based organizations and land reform advocates gathered today to form the Coalition for Land, Against Martial Law and Oppression (CLAMOR) to express the broad peoples’ unity to advance genuine land reform, social justice and civil liberties amidst current turbulent times.

“The most urgent situation calls upon us all to unite and act collectively for social justice and the common good. We are calling for free land distribution to the tillers. We want to put a stop to the killings of farmers as well as other extra-judicial killings. The peasantry and other sectors will continue to resist the tyrannical acts of the present government and its impending declaration of Martial Law throughout the country,” said Danilo Ramos, chairperson of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and a convenor of CLAMOR.

The broad coalition composed of farmers, agricultural workers, fisherfolk, workers, agrarian reform and peasants’ advocates, together with church-people and religious, non-government organizations, artists and other rural development advocates and supporters are calling for a stop to the peasant political killings. As of September, there have been 91 victims of political killings from the peasant and rural sector.

According to Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano, former secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform and also a convenor of the coalition, “There is indeed a mounting clamor among the peasant sector and the public in general to end the systematic terror being unleashed by the Duterte government against the rural folk and the people. The tillers, those who produce our food, have no land of their own and are mired in poverty and hunger. The moment they assert their rights, they become targets of repression and state-sponsored killings. The families of the victims are crying for help and shouting for justice. Their loved ones who were killed are not mere statistics in the growing list of victims of extrajudicial killings but also a clear testament to the continuing landlessness of the Filipino peasants and the alarming brutality and impunity with which the government carries out its repressive acts againts the rural folk and the people.”

“We also want to reach out to the families of those killed in the name of the government’s anti-drugs war. We are all victims of the killing spree. This rampage needs to stop. Enough is enough. Together, we will seek justice,” Ramos said.

The newly-launched coalition announced the holding of a broad rally on Wednesday, October 25 to be led by farmers and rural-based organizations. That day will mark the nationally-coordinated Peasant Caravan or Lakbay Magsasaka actions to demand genuine land reform and an end to extrajudicial killings, including peasant political killings. Sectors will hold protest programs at Welcome Rotonda, University of Sto. Tomas and Mendiola.

CLAMOR is convened by CBCP National Secretariat for Social Actions, Pagkakaisa para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo, KMP, United Churches of Christ in the Philippines, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, Servants of the Holy Spirit, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart,  Bishop Broderick Pabillo, ARISE, Stop the Killings Network, Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan, Task Force Mapalad, Bataris-Aurora, KATARUNGAN, Kilusang Magbubukid sa Bondoc Peninsula, AMIHAN Peasant Women Federation, Pamalakaya, National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates and ARBs One Movement-Southern Mindanao.

Among the lead convenors of CLAMOR are Mariano and Archdiocese of Manila Auxillary Bishop Most. Rev. Broderick Pabillo. #

 

#LakbayMagsasaka | Visayas Rural Poor Summit to Duterte: Listen to working people’s woes

Cebu City,   October 18 –  The city has not witnessed anything like this in years that Cebuanos –  motorists, ordinary folk and other onlookers along the streets of downtown Cebu could not help but stare at the sight of more than 2,000 farmers marching with banners and red flags.

The street demonstrations and “salubungan” (welcome) of delegates to the Lakbayan ng Visayas may have interrupted Cebu City’s usual routine yesterday in far more profound ways, said John Lozande, Secretary General of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA).

Police reported that the protests caused minor traffic in this city’s major thoroughfares.

“What we are witnessing is the naked power of our working people –  farmers long-oppressed by the hacienda system, mill workers, contractual laborers, our jeepney drivers, coming together to air their demands against a populist President who reneged on his promise of change,” said Lozande.

The start of the Visayas Lakbayan coincided with the second day of a nationwide transport strike to oppose government moves for a jeepney phase-out.

Farmers under the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) have openly declared support for jeepney drivers and small operators even as local peasant organizations launched distinct mass actions all over the country airing equally legitimate demands as part of #LakbayMagsasaka activities this October, which is considered “peasant month.”

“Duterte’s own pronouncements are exposing himself to be a despicable tyrant,” said Lozande, referring to President Duterte’s insensitive statements addressed to protesting jeepney drivers and their supporters. Duterte reportedly suggested that “the poor must be left alone to fend for themselves.”

The Lakbayan ng Visayas is an inter-island protest caravan against hunger and state fascism. Negros farmworkers under UMA and the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) are among the thousands of peasants who converged in Cebu yesterday.

Farmers decried that they are witnessing both hunger and brutal repression under the Duterte regime. In Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental, 8 farmers became victims of political killings from July to September alone, due to Duterte’s all-out war policy.

Today, the farmers will hold a Visayas Rural Poor Summit. UMA said that among the issues that must be decisively addressed is the plight of Negros farmworkers who experience extreme hunger during the tiempo muerto (dead season) or off-milling season in the sugar industry.

NFSW is also campaigning for a P50 increase in farmworkers’ daily wages, and 50% increase in the pakyaw (group wage) rates in sugar areas.

“Duterte must listen to working people’s woes,” said Lozande. “The iron-fist, scorched earth policy that Duterte employs to address the roots of discontent and strife in the country will only further isolate his regime.”

The Lakbayan ng Visayas peasant camp-out at Plaza Independencia will go on until October 20.

Meanwhile, KMP member-organizations from Mindanao, Bicol, Southern Tagalog, North and Central Luzon regions, are preparing for the Pambansang Lakbayan ng Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Laban sa Pasismo or #LakbayMagsasaka which will culminate in protests in Manila from October 23-25.