www.asianfarmers.org

By Juan Escandor Jr.
Southern Luzon Bureau

Posted date: November 20, 2008

MANILA, Philippines – At 4 a.m. Tuesday, the second day of their 21-day or 444-kilometer walk to Malacañang that started Monday in Bula town in Camarines Sur, 51 farmers and their supporters left Naga City to press for a reversal of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s decision in April that dispossessed them of their land.

Pobleo Clavero, 82, the oldest among the marchers, who has been tilling the land since 1939, said he hoped he could make it to Malacañang because this could be his last exercise of his right to seek justice.

Ermita’s decision on April 16 set aside the agrarian reform coverage of 123 hectares of the Fajardo Estate in Sitio Banasi, Barangay Pawili.

The estate is being tilled by 57 farmer-beneficiaries earlier awarded farm lots through Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) titled at the Registry of Deeds of Camarines Sur.

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To Demand PGMA to Give them back their land and to Call for the Immediate Passage of CARPER Bill

PAKISAMA Press Statement
17 November 2008, Camarines Sur, Philippines
Contact Persons: PAKISAMA: Rene Cerilla 0919-2363496 / Soc Banzuela 0917-7188986

After a short program attended by various support groups, forty-five farmers (12 women, 33 men) from Banasi Agrarian Reform Farmer Beneficiary Association (BARFBA) started their 444-kilometer walk to Malacanang at 9 a.m. today, November 17, 2008, from Sitio Banasi, Barangay Pawili in Bula, Camarines Sur.

They are marching to Malacanang to demand from the President the reversal of the Office of the President’s April 2008 decision signed by Secretary Ermita. The decision orders the Department of Agrarian Reform to cancel in favor of the previous landowners, Fajardo-Imperial, the Certificate of Landownership Award (CLOA) covering 123 hectares awarded to 57 Banasi farmers eleven years ago.

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Vietnam News, 11/8/08

NGHE AN — Viet Nam is well on its way to becoming a major Asian producer of biogas from animal, vegetable and human waste.

Each underground, brick-lined biogas tank can save about two to three tonnes of fuel wood a year or the equivalent of one third of a ha of forest.

This week, in the central province of Nghe An, the nation’s 50,000th biogas tank was installed as part of a special project for farmers.

This means total savings of about 100,000 tonnes of traditional fuels a year at a saving of VND100-120 billion (US$6-7.2 million). It also means the reduction of 225,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere a year.

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