[asia-apec 818] Landless peasants to swarm rural agencies in 24 town, cities

[PAN Asia Pacific]

FORWARDED MAIL -------
From: kmp at info.com.ph
Date: 20 Oct 98


NEWS RELEASE
19 October 1998
For immediate release

LANDLESS PEASANTS TO SWARM RURAL AGENCIES IN 24 TOWNS AND CITIES

MANILA (October 19) -- Militant peasants announce a week of
marching, occupations of local agrarian agencies and other protests
across the country in protest of  "CARP-assisted" land grabbing
abetted by President Joseph Estrada.

  In a media forum today, farmers and fishermen's groups from the Central
Luzon and Southern Tagalog also announced simultaneous camp outs and marches
in Manila and not less than 24 town halls as far south as Puerto Princesa
and Cebu City, involving more than 20,000 protesters marking the 26th
anniversary of Presidential Decree 27 or the land reform under Marcos
(October 21).=20

  The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) noted that peasants continue to
rely on their organized strength in defending their rights to land and
refuse to be misled by DAR secretary Horacio Morales' empty boasts of aiming
to distribute more than 4 million hectares of private lands in four more
years of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.=20

  "Across the last 25 years, only 1.4 million hectares are private lands
tokenly transferred to tenants, and 1.3 million are leasehold or non-land
transfer schemes and reforestation contracts of public lands leased out by
the DENR. Many are still being repossessed by landlords in cases crawling in
courts, quasi-judicial and administrative bodies, but DAR keeps dressing up
the figures," Mariano said.=20

  He said paper awards cancelled by DAR, DARAB, Malaca=F1ang and the Supreme
Court in the controversial cases of Sumilao and Central Mindanao University
in Musuan (Bukidnon); Hacienda Looc (Nasugbu, Batangas); Mamburao (Mindoro);
Montalban, Rizal; and San Jose del Monte, Bulacan; and many more are
registered to give a semblance that CARP is working. "The new tack in
producing five-figure additions by Morales and Estrada involves having their
godfather Danding Cojuanco announce stock options similar to the Hacienda
Luisita scam, which are of course only to expand his agribusiness
investments and avoid sequestration."=20

  For his part, Rodolfo Sambajon, chair of the fisherfolk movement
Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) demanded
the scrapping of CARL together with the new Fisheries Code of 1998 and the
Mining Act  of 1995 which the group fears will disguise the reconcentration
of 8 million hectares of communal uplands, marshes and foreshorelands unto
corporate monopolies, on top of the more than 7.6 million currently in
private hands.=20

  Its affliated chapter Haligi ng Batangue=F1ong Magdaragat (Habagat)=
 revealed
that fisherfolk from Batangas will encamp at the DENR tonight until the 21st
to exposed the inaction of the agency in stopping the pollution caused by
alcohol distilleries in Balayan Bay. They will be joined by the Katipunan ng
mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK) and the Alyansa ng
Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL) on the 21st in a 5,000-man march on=
 Mendiola.

  Local chapters of KMP and Pamalakaya will picket agency offices and local
governments in Calapan, Mamburao, Pinamalayan, Roxas, Nasugbu, Lucena City,
Lian, Calaca, Lemery, Rosario, Batangas City, San Juan, Gumaca, Infanta,
Puerto Princesa, Catanauan, Antipolo, Sta. Cruz, San Pablo City, Calauag,
Balayan and Cebu City.



=20

JOINT STATEMENT OF THE PEASANT, FISHERFOLK AND PEASANT SUPPORT NETWORKS ON 8
YEARS OF CALABARZON AND 26 YEARS OF PD 27 by KMP / PAMALAKAYA /=20
KASAMA-TK/ AMGL/ NNARA / NACFAR / BINHI / IRDF / NNARA Youth / SENTRA

If there is any place that the restoration not only of Marcos cronies to
power but more so of  the worsening of extreme feudal and semi-feudal
exploitation and fascist repression are intensely experienced and felt, it
is the rural countrysides. Everywhere the people try to survive by fishing
and farming, Joseph Estrada's pro-poor and pro-peasant rhetoric is exposed
to be as disgraceful as his attack on labor in the cities.

His DAR secretary Horacio Morales has glorified Danding Cojuanco as his
godfather of agrarian reform in exchange for the tiny portions from the
crony's vast landholdings. Morales can only make CARP more export-oriented
as dictated by the World Bank rather than resolve the fundamental problem of
landlessness, his deception hidden behind his armed escorts, cold and
irritated with the demands of peasants crying at the gates of his
airconditioned lair in Manila.=20

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, by the power of the
Mining and NIPAS Acts, has converted 142,000 hectares in Southern Tagalog,
67,000 hectares in Cebu to mining, and hundreds of thousands more in Negros,
Mindanao and the Cordillera to quarrying, commercial agroforestry, dams and
eco-tourism and industrial parks. The Department of Agriculture will
implement the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act and the Fisheries
Code to allow local and foreign monopolies to further claim fishery areas
and expand plantations for export crop production, while destroying the
livelihoods and jobs of millions.=20

Pretending to champion for the human rights of Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim,
Estrada ordered the Department of National Defense and the Department of
Interior of Local Governments to  criminalize the peasant struggle for land.
The armed forces complement the private security goons of the landlords in
harassing the peasant masses, often leading into arson of crops and
property, illegal arrests, abductions, sickness and injury, summary
executions, food blockades, forced evictions and evacuations. Victims turned
up dead in Mindoro and South Quezon or jailed on criminal cases in Batangas.
Large formations encamp and conduct mock battles in Hacienda Looc, in
Pampanga and Mindoro. DND chief Orlando Mercado praised his soldiers for
jobs well done.=20

The US-Estrada regime is clearly anti-poor, anti-peasant and
anti-democratic. Estrada, drunk with the mandate bestowed upon him by
Danding Cojuanco to be the chief political representative of the ruling
classes, will always defend the landlord, compradors, multinational
corporations and bureaucrat cronies. Landlessness and militarization will
intensify given his total puppetry to imperialist domination. Technocrats
take back their contempt for the dropout they scorned only three months ago
and now awed by his newfound genius for his outspoken devotion to
globalization and trade liberalization.

The peasants, the fisherfolk, the indigenous peoples, threatened with
wholesale displacement, are fighting back. Long ago we refused to be
deceived by token reforms promised by anti-peasant and farcical PD 27 and
CARP, we stayed on our lands and stopped the bulldozers and army trucks with
our organized strength and firm determination year after year, with the
support of other sectors in the media, the church, the academe and
pro-people parliamentarians and public servants and other exploited and
oppressed sectors. We struggled to reduce land rent and won gains in our own
land reform initiatives.=20

We have learned not to be fooled by the false promises of CARP, CALABARZON,
MARILAQUE, MIMAROPA, Pampanga Delta and Central Luzon Development Projects,
Philippines 2000, APEC, GATT-WTO and the Asean Free Trade Area, and we will
not fall for Jeep ni Erap and Makamasa. We have also learned the lesson that
only we can restore the lands taken from us by foreign and local monopolies
if we only sustain our resolve to bit by bit weaken the feudal power of the
landlords and their imperialist backers.

This week, across town and city halls of Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Mindoro,
Palawan, Rizal, Cebu and Metro Manila, we will once again launch the
struggle against imperialist plunder, feudal exploitation and fascist
repression. We will carry forward with the struggle of the broad masses for
genuine land reform and national industrialization.