Filtered By: Topstories
News

The Mendiola massacre: Old causes, new paths


Peasant leaders who survived the infamous Mendiola massacre 20 years ago still seek justice for their fallen members. But through the years, as they aged and their children grew, their means of pursuing land reform have also evolved, including even taking part or dealing with government.

Rafael Mariano was under 30 years old and the secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) when a lethal hail of lead ended a farmers’ march on Jan. 22, 1987. After the guns of government forces quieted, 13 farmers, all KMP members, lay dead while 80 others were wounded in the approaches to Mendiola bridge (now Don Chino Roces bridge) near Malacañang Palace where then President Corazon “Cory" Aquino held office.
PHOTO ESSAY: Mendiola Massacre
Now 49, Mariano is near the end of his three-year-term as party-list Representative of Anakpawis, a workers-based group. Mariano’s Anakpawis will seek to put him through a second them in the May elections. Mariano, a Nueva Ecija-born farmer, says being in Congress has not diminished his commitment to genuine land reform. “The social and political basis of the struggle for land is still potent. We do not have redistributive justice yet," says Mariano. Land reform Court records showed that about 20,000 marchers joined the historic Mendiola march to demand genuine land reform from Aquino, who assumed power barely a year earlier in the EDSA “people power" uprising in February 1986. The march stemmed from an eight-day campout in front of the Quezon City main office of the then Ministry of Agrarian Reform headed by Heherson Alvarez. The farmers were demanding for distribution of lands to farmers and zero retention of estates by landowners. The farmers, supported by organizations of churches, youth, workers and other sectors, decided to proceed to proceed to Malacañang after they felt that a series of talks with Alvarez failed to yield results. State response On January 21 this year, on the eve of massacre’s anniversary, the KMP and the victims’ relatives installed a stone marker bearing the names of the 13 farmers killed. On January 22, some 2,000 farmers are to commemorate the infamous massacre with a demonstration at the site. The incident serves as reminder how the government responded to the legitimate demands of the people, says Mariano. “We were unarmed and carried only peaceful calls then, but government met us with armed violence," he says. None held for killings No one was indicted for the massacre, which also became known as “Black Thursday" to journalists. This was despite findings of the Citizens’ Mendiola Commission, created by Aquino through Administrative Order No. 11, that the government crowd dispersal control teams were armed and used unnecessary firing to disperse the marchers. The commission, led by retired Supreme Court justice Pedro Abad Santos, recommended the prosecution of all commissioned officers of the Western Police District and the Integrated National Police Field Force who were armed that time. In 1993, the Supreme Court upheld a 1988 Manila Regional Trial Court decision to dismiss a P6.5-million class suit filed by relatives of the victims. The high tribunal agreed with Manila RTC judge Edilberto Sandoval that the State is immune from legal suits. Mariano says he carries these lessons even though he is already part of the government’s legislative arm. Amplifying the voice His position in Congress, in fact, even gave him an additional platform to serve the farmers, Mariano says. “It is already in my hands to amplify my small voice in Congress in behalf of farmers," he says. On Nov. 16, 2004, during Mariano’s fourth month in office, anti-riot police violently dispersed protesting farm workers at the Hacienda Luisita, owned by the Aquino family, in Tarlac province. Seven farm workers were killed and 27 others wounded in what is now known the second “Mendiola" massacre. On that same day, Mariano took the floor and condemned the hacienda administration and the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the incident. A congressional inquiry ensued based on Mariano’s complaint. Such legislative reforms, Marian admits, could have been difficult if he was not a lawmaker. Inside Congress, Mariano says he keeps his own set of rules: have no illusions and know the limitations. “Congress reflects that landed elites still rule our country. But through your presence, you use the space which was exclusively theirs to advance peoples’ issues," says Mariano. Mariano filed in 2004 House Bill 3028 which seeks to declare January 22 yearly as a National Farmers’ Day. The bill awaits second reading. Lack of support Former national KMP chairperson Jaime Tadeo, 68, refers to the 13 victims as his martyrs since they saved him from imminent harm as part of the "composite team" that shields march leaders. Up to this day, Tadeo can enumerate their names and give brief description on each from memory. The victims were Adelfa Aribe, Danilo Arjona, Ronilo Domanico, Dante Evangelio, Bernabe Laquindanum, and Roberto Yumul of southern Luzon; Leopoldo Alonzo, Dionisio Bautista, Roberto Caylao, and Sonny Boy Perez of central Luzon; and Vicente Campomanes, Angelito Gutierrez, and Rodrigo Grampan of northern Manila. A year after their deaths, Congress passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) amid opposition from landed lawmakers. The program was extended in 1998 for another 10 years to distribute a total of eight million hectares of public and private agricultural lands. Due to end next year, CARP still has to distribute about a million hectares of private agricultural lands. Most of these lands are still owned and controlled by families of landowner-politicians such as First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo and Eduardo Cojuangco in central Philippines and the family of former president Arroyo in northern Philippines. The government has failed to provide agrarian reform beneficiaries support services to cultivate their acquired lands, Tadeo says. “To kill land reform, you remove its budget. That is what the government did," says Tadeo, who served as farmer representative at the Land Bank of the Philippines during the term of former president Joseph Estrada. Bank troubles Tadeo says the LandBank, a government financial institution tasked to provide credit assistance to agrarian reform beneficiaries, has reneged from its main task. Stringent bank requirements such as financial track record and formation of cooperatives to secure loans have forced farmers to run to informal creditors or usurers in rural villages, peasant groups like the Task Force Mapalad claim. Moneyed planters meanwhile have usually availed loans from LBP because they could meet the agency’s requirements, TFM said in its 2006 study. Tadeo cites a recent Department of Agrarian Reform study saying 26 percent of agrarian reform beneficiaries have already sold or mortgaged their lands due to lack of capital. Tadeo left KMP in 1993, after spending three years in jail in connection with the Mendiola massacre. He now leads Paragos Pilipinas, a peasant group based in central Luzon, and is involved with different coalitions pushing for agrarian reform. Landless Danilo Ramos, current KMP secretary general, says the elusive agrarian reform in the Philippines presses on farmers to continue the battle cry of Mendiola. Ramos was then 31 and leader of the Anibang Magbubukid ng Bulacan he joined the march. He still vividly remembered how anti-riot police shot his companion in the knee. Ramos says many among his ranks remain landless. This includes his family which is yet to own the piece of land they have tilled since the 1950s in Malolos, Bulacan in central Luzon. Early last week, Ramos traveled to Sta. Cruz, Laguna in southern Luzon, about 30 kilometers south of Manila, to meet up with the relatives of some of the victims. “The cause of their fallen relatives is still very much alive in them," says Ramos. Like Ramos, many of the victims’ kin remain landless and poor. Other families were forced to mortgage their land due to lack of capital for farm production. Ramos says violence against farmers has even turned for the worse now as farmers press for genuine land reform. About 818 non-combatants have been killed since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took oath in January 2001, according to the human rights group Karapatan. Of this number, 300 or about one fourth were farmers. Ramos has not gone home since February last year after suspicious-looking men allegedly began looking for him in his hometown. Ramos links these threats to his testimony at the Senate last year on the PhP 728-million fertilizer scam, which bolstered public views that Arroyo cheated in the 2004 elections. But Ramos says these are already consequences of his decision to continue the cause for agrarian reform. “I knew the path I chose from the very start. Many of my colleagues have died and have been threatened, but I will go on," he says. GMANews.TV
LOADING CONTENT