Ahead of the 34th commemoration of the Mendiola Massacre, farmers from Southern Tagalog on Thursday called the attention of various government agencies to address their concerns -- including “massive land grabbing and conversion” in the region.
Almost a hundred farmers from Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Quezon, and Rizal went to Manila to hold a dialogue with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and seek resolution to long-standing land disputes covering thousands of hectares of productive agricultural lands which they charged as having been taken over by individuals, companies and government corporation.
The farmers started their protest action by marching from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to the DAR office in Quezon City. They also went to the Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and Camp Crame.
Eddie Billones of Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka sa Timog Katagalugan (KASAMA-TK) said that farmers from the provinces traveled to Quezon City and sought a face-to-face dialogue with Secretary John Castriciones as officials of DAR-IV “cannot give clear resolutions on land cases and disputes that have been going on for decades in the region.”
Billones said that the CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon) is a “permanent target of lucrative land conversion” and so-called development projects under the Build, Build, Build Program. “The region is lined-up with infrastructure and power generation projects but farmers remain poor and landless,” he added.
KASAMA-TK is the regional chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) in the CALABARZON region.
The farmers are also expected to ask Secretary William Dar and the DA for “urgent aid and assistance” to farmers affected by successive calamities. The KMP and KASAMA-TK demand P10,000 cash aid and P15,000 production subsidies from the DA.
The groups said that billions of pesos worth of palay, coconut, vegetables, and various crops were destroyed in the region by the Taal volcano eruption and back-to-back typhoons in the previous year.
The farmers are also set to join a multisectoral protest at Mendiola on Friday, Jan. 22 for this year’s commemoration of the Mendiola Massacre.