Land is life…We do not just defend it, We fight for it so that we can live with dignity. --BTL farmers

Land is life…We do not just defend it,
We fight for it so that we can live with dignity.
--BTL farmers

Bukidnon

June 24, 2011



Dialogue:Mission representatives and university officials

Photos courtesy of AMIHAN - Northern Mindanao Region


Mission Statement HUNGLOS: Solidarity Mission to the Struggle of Bukidnon Peasants Land is life…We do not just defend it, We fight for it so that we can live with dignity. --BTL farmers We are the members of HUNGLOS: Solidarity Mission to the Struggle of Peasants in Bukidon. We are students, health workers, lawyers, church people, and peasants representing national, international and local people’s organizations. We visited the farmers belonging to BTL who are camping out at the gate of Central Mindanao University and their communities to listen to their stories of struggle and hope, conduct medical mission and relief operation. We collectively raise our voice and add to the resounding call of the peasants for land that is being taken away from them. We affirm their legitimate and moral claim for land that they have long been tilling and from its fruit they are able to live even in the modest way. We are one in their dreams to live with pride and dignity, to enjoy a just economic order of society, to avail and have access to basic and social services and a life free from threat of bullets and armed might. We believe that the heart of any educational institution must live-out the principles and practice of social justice. We are alarmed that CMU as a center for education and formation of values of the youth is promoting a teaching that contradicts to the intention of social justice. By denying the farmers of the land that is very much attached to their lives, the CMU becomes a despotic landlord rather than an educational institution. Out of the more than 3,000 hectares, the farmers are just asking for 400 hectares to be shared among the 800 families. We are concerned that CMU is using the need for educational purpose as a justification of its act. The poor farmers’ claim for land and livelihood must not be sacrificed for this end purpose of the university. It must be realized that poor farmers themselves have been neglected for the longest time and their children are not even able to finish schooling.The national government must allocate bigger budget for education especially to state universities like CMU. Making the peasants landless for the purpose of education undermines the teaching of social justice. The fascist attack on the unarmed protesters not only violates the farmers’ rights but ultimately undermines the very concept of fundamental rights and freedoms. Ironically, this comes from an education institution which is supposed to exemplify to its students and to its immediate community the values of good governance. We are further disturbed that the CMU is resorting to unjustifiable harassments. It is hiring security guards under the Chevron agency to intimidate the peasants, and employ grave threats against peasants whose only means to survive is by tilling the land. We condemn the recent indiscriminate firing against peasants whose democratic right for assembly and freedom expression was violated. We likewise condemn the continuous violence being employed by the CMU Chevron guards among peasants who are doing their productive farming in their fields. We denounce the CMU’s scheme of depriving the peasants of their rights is purposely to favor a contract to a private corporation, the DAVCO and Del Monte Philippines, for the expansion of their pineapple and banana plantations. Without doubt, the failure of the government to implement genuine agrarian reform is the root of the land dispute. Lives have been sacrificed and the generational struggle continuous. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program did not resolve the problem of landlessness of BTL. It aggravates the burden of peasant as it only gives them false hope . As a mission in solidarity with the BTL, we: • Honor the struggle of BTL peasants for land. We uphold and support their just demands to own the peace of land that they have nurtured for decades. We call upon the CMU to, for humanitarian consideration and of the government’s agrarian reform program, respect the peasants’ right to land and life over profits . • Demand for the removal of CMU President Ma. Luisa Soliven for the bloody June 14 dispersal of the farmers’ picket lines, and for other atrocities committed this year against the farmers even before June 14. We demand for the immediate termination of the services of Chevron Security agency, and make CMU accountable on the atrocities done against the peasants • Call on the government to address the agrarian unrest at CMU by way of implementing genuine agrarian reform that will award ultimately titles of ownership to the BTL farmers. We invoke President Aquino III’s personal and his government's sense of history and social justice by taking notice and adherence to the 1971 Cadastral Court Decision allotting 321.9 hectares of land to the landless farmers for humanitarian reasons and in pursuit of the government's agrarian reform program. We are also calling on the national government to immediately enact the House Bill # 374 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB), that time and again, have led to exemption of vast amounts of productive lands from being distributed to the farmers • Call on the different sectors to share their solidarity support to the BTL peasants and make their struggle and hope be known across the country and the global community June 24, 2011 Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines Organizations represented in the Mission: Office of the Congressman Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis Partylist AMIHAN Northern Mindanao Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Ecumenical Bishops Forum (EBF) Promotion of Church People's Response (PCPR) Barug Katungod Mindanao KARAPATAN Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights Task Force BTL Asia Pacific Forum of Women in Law and Development (APWLD) Asian Rural Women's Coalition (AWRC) Rural Missionaries of the Philippines Health Alliance for Human Rights (HAHR) Community-based Health Services (CBHS) Bayan Muna Partylist Anakpawis Partylist Gabriela League of Filipino Students (Iligan City and Marawi) Kabataan Partylist (Cagayan de Oro and Pagadian Cities) Union of People's Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN) STI Students Alagad sa Maayong Panglawas (ALAMAPA) Union of of Communication Studies Student (UNICA) Mindanao State university STAND-MSU-IIT STAND-Iligan Computer Institute United Church of Christ in the Philippines Philippine Independent Church Kadamay Urban Poor Organization
			BTL Chair Wennie Loable (right) and BTL Women's Association Chair Dolores Gogodan.

			National peasant leaders, lawyers, doctors and religious nuns in solidarity with the BTL farmers






			children in the protest camps welcoming mision participants.JPG



AnakPawis Congressman Rafael Mariano in solidarity			Lady lawyer, Atty Beverly Selim-Musni of the Union of People's Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) and legal consultant of Amihan Northern Mindanao, gives solidarity message to BTL farmers in the protest camps

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Tomoko Kashiwazaki of the Asia Pacific Women in Law and Development (APLWD) delivering her organization's solidarity message		Mission participants from student organizations calling for justice to BTL farmer-victims


	Press release June 20, 2011 For reference: Jay Calaguing, UMA information officer To prevent more bloodshed: Farm group calls for DAR intervention on farmers-CMU land dispute! Bukidnon – Farm workers led based group Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura UMA] call for the immediate investigation and intervention of the Department of Agrarian Reform and urge the land reform body to appeal to the high court to reverse its decision to prevent more bloodshed against BUFFALO, TAMARAW and LITMUS farmers. UMA through its secretary general Rodel Mesa conveyed its abhorrence on the June 14, 2011shooting incident led by the security cum armed goons of the Central Mindanao University on the peaceful protest camp of BUFFALO , TAMARAW and LITMUS. “We condemned the CMU’s action against the farmers and farm workers who wish nothing but a little space on the school’s vast property for them to till. The 3,080 hectares were the school sits on has been continuously contested since the 1958 by indigenous people’s communities which was part of their ancestral land that were driven out because of government titling process which they did not knew. That is why CMU has no right to scold and impose its will against the hapless peasants for the property is under contested”. In 1985, after the Philippine Packing Inc expire its contract, part of the land were rented to the employees to cultivate the land through the Kilusang Sariling Sikap program. Many of the farmers were employed to work on the CMU’s rice field that had gone bankrupt. So these means they are a long time tillers of the land contrary to the university’s claim that the farmers and farm workers are “squatters”. “After the Supreme Court decided favoring CMU in 1992 ordering the cancellations of Certificate of Land Ownership Award [CLOA] on the 400 hectares of land approved by DAR to be distributed, the university’s past and present president continuously harassing the peasants of constant threat of eviction. Private security forces were part of the demolition job by destroying their crops Not only that, CMU allowed military forces inside the premises threatening the residents who are members of BTL and branding them as communist sympathizers.” The UMA leader said. According to a report, the reason why CMU has an itching hand to get rid of the farmers and farm workers because of the impending investment of the Davao Agricultural Ventures Corporation. Under the guise of education promotion which under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reform [CARPER] is exempted for land distribution. Two birds in stone, getting the finance burden over budget cut and at the same time getting rid of the farm workers in the process. “DAR should act as soon as possible, the farmers and farm workers of BUFFALO , TAMARAW and LITMUS is not going to give up their struggle to the lands for decades have become their main source of livelihood as genuine tillers. And at the same time we are supporting the struggle of BTL farmers and farm workers for their right to the land that CMU president Maria Luisia Soliven and before her continuously deny out of sheer greed to profit. Also we are calling for an appropriate action of the local government of Bukidnon through Vice Gov. Jose Ma. Zubiri on the shooting incident that resulted to the wounding of the seven protesters and file criminal charges against Chevron Security for assaulting a peaceful protest camp while administrative and possible criminal charge against CMU president Ma. Luisia Soliven for letting this assault happened”.
Mission Panelist on the way to the CMU Administration Building for a dialogue with the administration



CMU administration talking with the Mission Panels.



Representatives of student organizations all over Mindanao doing a solidarity 'die-in protest' for the BTL farmers in front of the University gate during the Mission


		Volunteer doctors of the Mission offering services to the BTL farmers

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