Farmers told: Take fight outside Congress

MANILA, Philippines - Following their "defeat" in Congress, militants urged farmers to continue pushing for land reform by "enforcing" it in the countryside. Militant umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said Filipino farmers should boost their collective strength in the countryside to enforce genuine agrarian reform. "The legislative arena is just one field of struggle by farmers and advocates of genuine agrarian reform. Indeed, the battleground is far wider than the halls of a landlord-dominated Congress. It is in the remotest barangays in the countryside where farmers and farm workers should collectively struggle against oppression and exploitation that stem from landlord domination," Bayan chairwoman Carol Araullo said in an article on the Bayan website. Araullo, however, did not directly say if "enforcing" land reform means occupying lands that they believe belong to them. She would only say a strong, independent peasant movement, with unwavering support from other oppressed sectors of society, is the best hope for genuine agrarian reform in the country. Bayan added it will continue supporting all efforts to implement a genuine agrarian reform program because it is the key to the country's national industrialization and overall economic development. Last week, both houses of Congress passed a joint resolution extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for another six months. But the extension will cover only lands that landlords will voluntarily offer to sell and excluded compulsory acquisition. "Is 20 years of CARP not enough to show that the program has simply legitimized land monopoly and outright grabbing? If CARP is effective, then why is it that until today, two-thirds of the peasantry are still landless and consequently, almost two-thirds of the Filipino poor are in the rural areas?" asked Araullo. She reiterated the need for a new program that will truly meet the aspiration of farmers to own and control the land they till. Bayan and its allies had been pushing for the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) being pushed by party lists Anakpawis, Bayan Muna (BM), and Gabriela Women's Party. "The latest episode in the peasants' and people's struggle for genuine agrarian reform has again taught us that fundamental policy reforms will not be given on a silver platter. Land to the tillers can only be a product of painstaking work and collective, direct political actions by peasants and the people as a whole," Araullo said. - BusinessWorld