Stop peddling your lies, peasants tell Army in southern RP

DAVAO CITY, Philippines - Militant farmer's group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas – Southern Mindanao Region, lambasted Thursday the 10th Infantry Battalion after army officials denied human rights abuses committed by soldiers from the 3rd Special forces against residents of Paquibato District in Davao City.

“We are holding copies of affidavits sworn in by at least six victims of physical injuries, harassment, grave threats and intimidation committed by the military since January this year.

The military is blatantly lying to the public about its crimes against the people. While it tries to save face, the people, the victims themselves are speaking up, demanding justice over the crimes committed against them” Tony Salubre, KMP - SMR Spokerperson said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

Salubre said of the victims who approached the help of farmer and human rights groups, four members of the Paquibato District Peasant Alliance (PADIPA) have been subject to physical injuries on January 27 this year while the 10th ID was holding a massive military operation. The victims are residents of Sitio 5 in the village of Mapula.

On a separate incident on January 29, three residents from the villages of Panialum and Paquibato, including a local church leader, were similarly mauled by unidentified elements from the same military unit.

Salubre stressed that no less than Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, himself, chided the military and asked them to leave the area for mauling residents of Panilaum. He said that after the condemnation of the abuses by the local government and rights groups, human rights abuses in the area even worsened.

KMP said that residents of Paquibato complained in writing that on February 7, one resident was subject to strafing by elements of the military while on February 12, two farmers were then again mauled.

“There is no justification for the military's crimes committed against civilians. The military must be held accountable for the cycle of abuses, white washing and escapism that they implement as part of their bloody counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya 2 of which civilians are mainly targeted,” Salubre said.

KMP calls for the Commission on Human Rights and the Davao City local government to hold an immediate investigation of the victims' complaints, challenging the two agencies to act on the long acute problem of “denial of justice” for victims of human rights violations committed by the Philippine Armed Forces.

What Land Reform? Farmers Group Asked

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 31, 2008) - Filipino farmers decried Thursday the government's failure to address the worsening land problems in the Philippines.

“Farmers are not fooled by Mrs. Arroyo’s rhetoric and bloated figures. Such reports cannot mitigate the hunger, disease and the loss of dignity that the crisis has afflicted the rural poor,” said Pedro Arnado, deputy chairman of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in Southern Mindanao.

He also criticized President Gloria Arroyo's State of the Nation Address this week spelling out her land reform achievement. Arnado's group said 1.651 million hectares of land and the 600,000 ancestral domains reportedly distributed by the Arroyo presidency under its land reform program in the last seven years were mere figures which "hide the suffering condition of farmers and lumads."

Lumad is one of more than dozen indigenous tribes in the southern Philippines. Arnado said problems of farmers on Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program are worsening and is contributing largely to the country’s “chronic” economic disorder.

“Behind these figures, the truth glares us in the face: most CARP lands have already been foreclosed by Land Bank because farmers are hardly able to pay for the high amortization rates, farm lands are without irrigation, farmers have no access to subsidy for farm implements and technology, or these have already been grabbed by multinational corporations.”

“We have no one else to blame for the shortage of rice. It is not at all topography, it is only because we have a president who promotes land conversion in order for multinational companies to get their super profits while our farmers lose their lands and our nation suffers from the worst state of food insecurity in history,” Arnado said in a statement.

He said Mindanao agricultural lands are subject to the encroachment of agri-business investments when Arroyo promised in her previous State of the Nation Address to turn the region as the country's food basket.

He said some 200,000 hectares of lands in southern Mindanao alone have been converted into banana and pineapple plantations by Del Monte and Dole corporations while millions of hectares are also threatened with the looming ratification of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

KMP also dared the Arroyo government to bare the “vast” area of lands which have remained under the property of landed families or those leased to foreign agribusiness and mining corporations.

“We call on the president to never again use the farmers, the indigenous peoples, the Filipino masses for her lies, if she has any dignity and shame left. We will not be with her as she has summoned. We can’t let her bring the nation further into any ‘roller coaster’ disaster,” Arnado said. “Our stand remains, GMA has no moral and political ascendancy to rule this government. She must go,” he said.

Peasant Leader Killed In Southern Philippines

Militant labor leader Celso Pojas, of the Farmers' Association of Davao City, during a rally May 12, 2008 in Davao City in southern Philippines. Pojas, also the vice chairman of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, was killed by two motorcycle gunmen May 15, 2008 just outside the FADC office. (BAYAN photo)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / May 15, 2008) - A militant labor leader was gunned down Thursday in the southern Philippines, where security forces are battling communist insurgents.

Celso Pojas, leader of the Farmers’ Association of Davao City and spokesman for the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, was killed by two motorcycle gunmen outside their office in Davao City.

Pojas, 45, was also the vice chairman of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), tagged by the Philippine military as a front of the communist New People’s Army rebels.

“He is a good man who had been fighting for the rights of the oppressed. We condemn the killing of a good man and we accused the military as behind his murder,” Jeppie Ramada, BAYAN Secretary-General, told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said Pojas had been receiving death threats from suspected military men who had been tailing the militant leader since last year. “Armed men, sporting military haircut, had previously warned Ka Celso that he would be killed because of his activities as a peasant leader,” Ramada said.

“The killing of Ka Celso is politically motivated because he was a staunch supporter of human rights and his being against continued militarization in many parts of Davao and Compostela Valley provinces and other areas in southern Mindanao” Ramada said.

No group or individual claimed responsibility for the murder and the military flatly denied any involvement in the killing of Pojas.

“We have nothing to do with it. We respect human rights. Let us wait for the investigation of the police,” Major Raymundo Aguada, a spokesman for the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, said in a separate interview.

The Philippine military previously tagged Pojas’ groups as fronts of the New People’s Army rebels fighting for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)

Filipino Farmers Hold Anti-Government Protest In South

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 19, 2007) – Hundreds of farmers on Friday held a rally in Davao City in southern Philippines to protest the government’s failure to help alleviate the worsening poverty condition in the countryside.

Celso Pojas, regional spokesperson for the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, said farmers were also protesting the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

About 900 people joined the protest, which coincided with the commemoration of the Peasant month, he said.

The government’s agrarian reform program may be extended after President Gloria Arroyo certified as urgent a bill seeking a 10-year extension of the CARP, which is set to end in June 2008, ten years after it was passed.

The CARP is primarily a social reform measure and addresses the need for a more equitable distribution of land ownership. Its end-goal is to improve the standards of living of beneficiaries and promote greater economic activity in the rural areas.

But Pojas said extending the CARP would only exacerbate the plight of the farmers who, until now, suffers from landlessness and usurpation from big landlords and multi-national companies.

“We never benefited from the CARP. Our farmers remain landless,” Pojas told the Mindanao Examiner newspaper.

“The big landlords and multi-national corporations are the ones who have benefited from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, not us farmers. The CARP's distorted definition of agrarian reform and the law's actual provisions reveal its unmistakable bias in favor of landowners and agribusiness. This program has never been a solution to our problem.”

“Most of the benefactors do not have the security of owning the lands they tilt due to the imposition of heavy amortization of Land Bank. While some of us were forced to enter ‘growership’ contracts and leasehold arrangements with big plantations due to the lack of support from the government,” he said.

Pojas said the poor implementation of the CARP is worsened by feudal exploitation as many landlords continue to wield power in the countryside. “We call for the scrapping of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program not for its extension,” he said.

In Zamboanga City, Filipino agrarian expert Julita Ragandang the CARP extension would benefit more farmers. “There are still many things to do,” Ragandang, who heads the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Western Mindanao, said.

Some seven million hectares of agricultural lands, from more than four millions all over the country, have already been distributed. More than four million farmers benefited from the CARP, according to DAR, which is the lead implementing agency of the agrarian reform program.

It undertakes land tenure improvement, development of program beneficiaries, and the delivery of agrarian justice. DAR conducts land survey in resettlement areas. It undertakes land acquisition and distribution and land management studies. The DAR also orchestrates the delivery of support services to farmer-beneficiaries and promotes the development of viable agrarian reform communities.

The passage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), Republic Act 6655, in 1988 was hailed as a historic occasion. CARL promised to redistribute agricultural lands -- in several phases -- to those who actually till them.

Most of the government funding for CARP came from the recovered P50-billion of the so-called Marcos' ill-gotten wealth; however, only P10 billion was allocated to the DAR, the rest of the money was distributed to other agencies, including P8-million for human rights victims under then President Ferdinand Marcos.

Belgium, Spain and Japan among the countries that are supporting the CARP. (Mindanao Examiner)