Fort Magsaysay peasants start three-day protest march to Manila

CABANATUAN CITY, Nueva Ecija - Over 500 members of a peasant group in Nueva Ecija province began a three-day caravan to Manila to protest government policies that have allegedly denied them a chance to own land. The Alyansa ng mga Magsasakang Nagkakaisa sa Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation (Alamana-FMMR) said the Lakbayan-Sakbayan (march-caravan) was timed for the annual ‘Linggo ng Pakikibaka ng Magsasaka laban sa Kahirapan (peasant protest week against poverty) that will stretch up to October 21. This peasant march-caravan led by the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL) kicked off from Cabanatuan City, and will make stops in Gapan City also in Nueva Ecija; and the cities of Malolos and Meycauayan in Bulacan. It will join other militant peasant organizations led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City for a night-long protest vigil in Oct. 20 and will march to the Mendiola Bridge on Oct. 21 in a bid to attract the attention of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The contingent denounced the alleged conspiracy by the government, local big landlords and the military leadership to systematically deny them ownership the lands they have been tilling for years inside the Fort Magsaysay in the municipality of Laur in this province. Joseph Canlas, chairman of the AMGL, said the issue started with former President Fidel Ramos’ grandiose plans of converting a big part of the 73,000 hectares military reservations as one of the key centers for the “development" of Luzon in relation to his ambition of a Newly Industrializing Country or NIChood for the Philippines. “It is being repackaged by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo these days as the Metro-Luzon Urban Beltway which includes the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and other related thoroughfares that will cut through Nueva Ecija up to Dinggalan in Aurora under her ‘Five Super Regions’ fantasy," said Canlas. She said Mrs. Arroyo’s program will use the military reservation as a key for the “development of Luzon" will fan her illusion for the country to join the first world some years from now. It now dangles like the proverbial Damocles Sword over the heads of thousands farmer members of the Almana-FMMR particularly those tilling 3,100 hectares of lands granted to them through the farcical Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP.) “It is ironic that the government after ‘transferring’ the lands to the peasants through the inutile CARP; made them amortize for it when it should have been granted to them as tillers without payment, they are taking them away again through land use conversion and other scheme," Canlas added. Compounding the already messy conditions are the counterclaims by usual local big landlords like the Tinio and Joson Families who have staked big measures of the military reservations. Even the Fort Magsaysay authorities want a big part of the pie they all hope to realize under Arroyo’s “economic development" in the area. They are all now one in using the power of their guns in scaring and eventually driving the peasants away from their only source of living, Canlas explained . He added that even before the expanse that stretched from Nueva Ecija, Aurora and Bulacan was declared as military reservation in 1955 the peasants have already cleared, tilled and made it productive. In 1991 the Department of National Defense executed a Deed of Transfer with the DAR through the Executive Order 407 to transfer 3,100 hectares of the whole measure to the tillers and to victims of the Pinatubo eruption. - GMANews.Tv