Philippine Farmers Stage Hunger Strike, Demand Distribution Of Land Owned By President's Husband

Farmers march, shave heads and stage hunger strike in Manila to press equitable distribution of lands to beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 1, 2008) – Eight Filipino farmers, including a woman, staged a hunger strike Monday in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Manila to press the government to look into the plight of peasants in Negros Occidental province.
The farmers were all from Hacienda Bacan, owned by President Gloria Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, in the village of Guintubhan in Isabela, Negros Occidental.

They resorted to an indefinite hunger strike to press for registration of their Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA). The farmers are encamped outside the DAR office since November 8. They already shaved their heads, nuns assisting them, to protest the government failure to register their CLOA.

The eight farmers were among some 30 peasants who were arrested by the police last week for protesting in front of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) office in Manila. They were later freed after the LRA dropped the complaint it filed against them.

The farmers said they wanted only to seek an audience with LRA Administrator Benedicto Ulep for registration of their CLOA.

The police rounded up the farmers and filed charges of illegal assembly and serious disobedience to authority, but the Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Leila De Lima convinced the LRA to drop the charges.

The farmers said they were forced to bring the issue to LRA after the Register of Deeds (ROD) in Bacolod City repeatedly refused to do so due to alleged pressure from the hacienda owner.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation called Task Force Mapalad, is among those who are on hunger strike. Angeles, also a petitioner for distribution of another Arroyo land, the 196-hectare Hacienda Grande in the village of Robles in La Castellana, said he is in solidarity with the Bacan farmers.

“Once again we are putting our lives at stake to convince the First Gentleman to uphold and obey the law, stop resisting the Comprehensive Agrarian reform Program and allow his hacienda to be distributed to the farmer-beneficiaries,” Angeles said.

Angeles said the registration of CLOA is the final step prior to installation of 67 farmer-beneficiaries in the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan, which had been awarded to them under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

“The farmer-beneficiaries deserve to be given their land. They had fought for almost 10 years. They had overcome all obstacles put up by the landowner. Now they are in the final battle for registration of their CLOA,” Angeles said.

He said among the obstacles the farmers had to hurdle were alleged attempts by the landowner to delay or stop the processing of claim folder, the issuance of memorandum of valuation, and the issuance of certificate of cash deposit.

Father Robert Reyes, who is supporting the farmers, led Monday the start of a 10-day, 157-kilometer run in support to the distribution of Hacienda Bacan to its beneficiaries.

Reyes said the run is also a symbolic call for Congress to hasten the passage of a law extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

“I support the Negros farmers because their cause is just, and I call for extension of CARP because it is the only legal instrument by which poor farmers can hope to own land,” Reyes said.
Reyes said the 157 kilometers that he and other participants from civil society will complete in 10 days represent the 157 hectares that comprise Hacienda Bacan.

The priest and the other runners started in San Miguel town in Tarlac province to remind how CARP was compromised when the hacienda, owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino, moved for stock distribution option instead of directly distributing the land to farm workers, thus practically evading land distribution. (With a report from Lani Factor)