(Introductory remarks by Crispin Aguelo, President of PAKISAMA, to a thematic workshop entitled: “Access to Land: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities. Role and Perspectives of Farmers’ and Rural Producers’ Organizations”, held in Rome, February 2008.)
Good morning colleagues in the agrarian reform movement! I am Crispin Aguelo, President of PAKISAMA or National Movement of Peasant Organizations in the Philippines, a member of the Asian Farmers Association or AFA. I was tasked to give introductory remarks to our thematic session entitled “Access to Land: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities. Role and Perspectives of Farmers’ and Rural Producers’ Organizations”.
Very recently, with a grant support from the International Land Coalition, the national peasant federation which I represent has been able to assist a local member farmers’ organization, mostly composed of indigenous peoples, in its land campaign. Fifty five farmers from the Sumilao village in Southern Philippines marched 1,700 kilometers over a two month period to have an audience with the President of the Republic up north. It was the longest walk so far done by a group of farmers in our country, to demand justice from the President. They wanted their 144-hectare ancestral land back, which they have been claiming over the past two decades. It is currently being bulldozed by a big and powerful Filipino Multinational Corporation constructing a state-of-the art complex for the production of thousands of genetically-engineered pigs.
The two-month cross-country march by this highly organized and disciplined core of 55 farmers got tremendous and unprecedented support from national networks of NGOs, fellow farmers’ organizations, urban poor organizations, schools, media, local and national government agencies and the powerful Roman Catholic Church. They got enough food, shelter, and logistics donations, generous publicity and broad positive public opinion. The President eventually met with the farmers and issued an Executive Order giving them the legal basis for claiming back their land.
The victory was just the first step. The Corporation has not stopped its illegal construction activities in the contested property, in direct defiance to the President’s order. The President, on the other hand, has been very silent since the release of her Executive Order, two and a half months ago. Feeling betrayed, the farmers went back to Manila and conducted their marches to schools and churches. They are poised to launch larger campaigns in the coming days. Meanwhile the funding for our country’s agrarian reform program is ending in four months, and some four million hectares of land remain to be distributed/reclaimed by millions of landless farmers.
There are just three points I would like to emphasize in our discussion given the lessons we generated in our land tenure security campaigns especially from the story I just narrated.
First, the importance of land tenure security. To most of the Sumilao farmers, who are landless farmworkers, they marched that long to get justice and to eat meals with regularity. Victimized by colonial powers and/or local, national, and transnational elites, millions of landless farmers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and many other agrarian societies continue to wallow in poverty. We now have decades of direct experience and vast literatures showing the importance of land reform to rural poverty reduction and to the broader economic, political, and cultural development of agrarian societies. We are a member of Asian Farmers Association (AFA). We cannot help but envy the prosperity reached by our fellow farmers from Taiwan, South Korea, and even Vietnam. They tell us, all their members, however small, have secure tenure, access and control over their land.
Second, the importance of effective and massive peasant organizations. The strength, determination, and capacity of Sumilao farmers to influence and catch the imagination of the public is largely due to two decades of community organizing work. There is urgency and great need for effective and significant support to building community organizing capacity especially among the local peasant organizations and their provincial and national federations to ensure their voice become so loud not to be heard and their political, economic, and cultural influence to be taken for granted. Given the serious and strong local, national, and transnational elite’s capture of state power in most if not all agrarian societies, the democratization of access and control over land resource is expectedly difficult and protracted. It is something that needs to be struggled on and fought for by no less than the landless tillers themselves in an organized and persistent manner. And in most cases, only when they are organized at various levels (local, national, regional, international) will they have the fighting chance.
Third, the importance of alliances. The Sumilao farmers and their support national federation mobilized their civil society alliances to get greater public opinion and eventually get government to negotiate. Land reform is basically about power shifting in favor of the marginalized landless farmers. This power shift usually requires a variety of power sources beyond the capacity of peasant organizations to address. In most cases, the peasant organizations will only be as effective voice and muscle if they are supported in a significant way by a variety of institutions such as non-government organizations, donor agencies, academic institutions, churches, media, asset reform-oriented government agencies, and international agencies, in their struggle with their members to acquire and/or re-acquire access and control over their ancestral and/or tilled lands.
We affirm the importance of these three factors: an equity-led, land tenure security-based rural poverty and national development strategy, strong local farmers organizations and competent federations, and multi-stakeholder alliances as imperatives to meaningful and broad land reform programs. It is in this context that this global gathering of farmers and their supporters become so important to us. We read the policy draft of IFAD entitled: Promoting Equitable Access to Land and Tenure Security for Rural Poverty Reduction. We agree with the analysis of the problem and the measures IFAD wishes to pursue. We would be very happy if such policy is adopted and meaningfully implemented especially if it would give enough emphasis to the three success factors we asserted above.
I am pleased to meet all of you and wish a lively exchange of ideas and experiences in the next couple of hours! Thank you much to IFAD for giving us this opportunity.
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