THE TASK Force Mapalad (TFM) national peasant federation strongly
condemns the May 5, 2003 military raid and arrest of two (2) rightful
beneficiaries and two (2) relatives of another beneficiary, both in
their teens, in Hacienda Mulawin in Barangay Poblacion 1 in Sagay
City. The rightful beneficiaries are all Certificate of Land Ownership
Award (CLOA) holders to the 25-hectare hacienda, formerly owned by
Antonio Lopez.
The military raid is sheer harassment to TFM CLOA holders who are
defending their moral and legal rights. Under the 15-year-old agrarian
reform law, these CLOA holders are already the owners of the land.
The former landowner, however, whom the Philippine government has
completely remunerated for the land, refuses to shed its control through
use of hired armed goons and other legal tactics that merely aim to
obstruct agrarian reform.
The military raid corroborates that military and police personnel
in Negros are beholden to influential landowners, who are desperate
to retain control of lands through outright violence and legal maneuvers.
This adds to the long list of tragedies of TFM members and other
farmer organizations wherein the police and military, mandated to
ensure peace and order in our communities, become dummies of recalcitrant
landowners in harassing agrarian reform beneficiaries. In many cases
here in Negros and in other provinces, they are the ones implanting
and fabricating evidences to pin down small farmer beneficiaries.
We denounce the double standards in implementing and enforcing the
law. We are easy targets for raids, arrests, evictions, killings and
other armed attacks. But we ask: what about influential landowners—the
Benedictos, Villanuevas, Cojuangcos, Cuencas, Gustilos, Lopezes, Lizareses,
among others—who hire armed guards and security agencies to
harass rightful beneficiaries? What about influential landowners whom
issue firearms to farmers loyal to them? What about influential landowners
who are behind violent attacks against farmer beneficiaries, the latest
of which led to the death of a CLOA holder in another hacienda in
Moises Padilla?
With a helpless agrarian reform department to implement essence of
the law and military and police whom are beholden to influential landowners,
where do we turn to? We have a government that completely decapitates
us in our struggle to uphold our rights. This tragedy however would
not deter us from waging even our last breath. It is the collusion
of influential landowners and law enforcers that pushes us to let
militancy flourish in our ranks, for we have no one else but ourselves
to seek the just and humane life we all deserve.
---------------
