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Statement of Unity
Pagkakaisa para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo
(PATRIA)
Northern Mindanao Region
We of PATRIA or Pagkakaisa para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (People’s
Alliance for Genuine Agrarian Reform), organizations of peasants,
agricultural workers, fisherfolks and their advocates among legislators,
church people, social activists, professionals and the academe affirm our
commitment to work and struggle for genuine land reform in the country.
We underscore the fact that while the Philippines is rich in natural
resources, including forty four per cent of thirty million hectares of
land area consisting of productive agricultural land, the majority of our
people are suffering from severe and unrelieved hunger and want.
The peasantry constitutes the biggest productive force (75 percent of the
population) of
the Philippine economy. They, together with the fisher folk, produce the
staple food of rice and fish for the vast majority of the population. It
stands to reason that the farm lands tilled by the peasants and the
fishing grounds of the fishers must be taken care of for the benefit of
all the people who rely on them.
However, for more than 19 years of the implementation of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), the monopoly in the ownership and control of
land resources by big landlords, foreign and domestic agri-corporations
and bureaucrat capitalists has not been shattered. Instead, feudal and
semi-feudal exploitation and oppression have merely intensified.
The original target of 10.3 million hectares for land reform was reduced
in 1995 to 8.3
million. Of the 12.6 million hectares estimated by the Bureau of
Agricultural Statistics as planted to traditional and export crops,
roughly 8 million hectares are not even covered by CARL.
While the Arroyo government and other pseudo peasant groups claim of the
benefits of CARP, the “total accomplishment report” of the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) does not take into account the lands wherein
Certificates of Land Transfer (CLT), Emancipation Patents (EP) and
Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) – documents showing the
peasants’ legal right to eventually own the land they till – have been
taken back using a variety of reasons such as the case of the members of
the Gingoog City United Farmers Association (GCUFA) in Gingoog City and 14
CARP Beneficiary Certificate (CBC) holders in Sta. Ana, Tagoloan, Misamis
Oriental.
GCUFA members who were earlier given CLOAs are now landless after their
CLOAs were cancelled on the basis of the exemption clause of the law. In
Sta. Ana, Tagoloan, Numenario Neri wants to take back his 42 hectare land
which is now being cultivated by 14 CBC holders in exchange of a measly
P50,000 each. These are only two of the several cases happening in the
region.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares have been exempted from reform because
of land use conversion such as for “tourism zones”, retention limits to
landlords and their children, arrangements alternative to the physical
distribution of lands such as production or profit sharing, labor
administration and the distribution of shares of stock and other
provisions of the CARL all favor the big landlords and agricorporations.
We, further decry that landlord violence against peasants, especially
those who assert their economic and political rights, is reinforced by the
heavy-handed repression carried out by the armed forces of the state,
paramilitary groups and private goons such as the cases of harassments of
victims of CARP in Central Mindanao University and Gingoog City.
Here in the region, peasant leaders namely Dalmacio “Daki” Gandinao, Siche
Gandinao and Nestor Ladica, all of Salay Misamis Oriental and leaders of
Misamis Oriental Farmers Association and Candelario Ayuda of Valencia,
Bukidnon have already been victims of extrajudicial killings.
Thus, we are strongly calling for the immediate rejection of the CARL,
more so its proposed extension by the Arroyo regime past 2009. Our battle
cry is to bring the call for genuine agrarian reform onto the national
agenda, as both the correct way to modernize agriculture, develop the
rural and national economy, and most importantly, uplift the economic and
socio-cultural conditions of more than two-thirds of the population
through the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) or House Bill 3059.
While we have no illusions that such a bill would be passed in a
landlord-dominated Congress, we believe that through the strength of the
peasants and people in their struggle to end feudal exploitation and the
monopoly in the ownership of land by a few and in the struggle for genuine
land reform geared towards national industrialization can the society
realize their economic and democratic aspirations and social justice.
SCRAP THE CARPer!
SUPPORT THE PASSAGE OF THE GENUINE AGRARIAN REFORM BILL OR HB 3059!
NO TO CHARTER CHANGE!
JUSTICE TO ALL FARMERS WHO ARE VICTIMS OF EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS!
*********
KILUSANG MAGBUBUKID NG PILIPINAS (KMP) NORTHERN MINDANAO
RURAL MISSIONARIES OF THE PHILIPPINES (RMP) NORTHERN MINDANAO SUB-REGION
MISAMIS ORIENTAL FARMERS ASSOCIATION (MOFA)
KAHUGPUNGAN SA MGA MAG-UUMA SA BUKIDNON (KASAMA-BUKIDNON)
UNYON SA MGA MAG-UUMA SA AGUSAN DEL NORTE (UMAN)
NAGKAHIUSANG MGA MAG-UUMA SA AGUSAN DEL SUR (NAMASUR)
KAHUGPUNGAN SA MGA MAG-UUMA SA LANAO (KAMAS- LANAO)
KALUMBAY LUMAD ORGANIZATION
AMIHAN- NORTHERN MINDANAO
PAMALAKAYA MISAMIS ORIENTAL
ORGANISASYON SA MGA YANONG OBRERONG NAGKAHIUSA (OGYON)
PROMOTION OF CHURCH PEOPLE’S RESPONSE (PCPR) NORTHERN MINDANAO
Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Sub-Region
(RMP-NMR)
Postal Address:
Gonzales Res., Purok Lourdes, Tubod
9200 Iligan City, Philippines
Tel. No.: (063) 221-7807
Email: rmp_nmr@yahoo.com.ph
"our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and
active"--1 john 3:18
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