Members of the progressive party-list bloc at the House of Representatives walked out of the session hall, December 17, as their colleagues adopted Joint Resolution No. 19. They said they decided not to be a party to the landlord-dominated House of Representatives’ “pretensions, and deception of the Filipino peasantry and the people” in extending the ‘bogus’ Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which was further emasculated with the removal of the compulsory acquisition scheme.
Category: Agrarian Reform
Groups Urge Int’l Banks: Stop Funding Destructive Mining Projects
“The OceanaGold Corporation and Lafayette mining projects are both anti-people and anti-environment. These are the main reasons why OGC will not prosper and will fail.” Bulatlat.com Volume VIII, Number 30, August 31 – September 6, 2008 Environmentalists, indigenous peoples, and Church people picketed the Australian New Zealand (ANZ) Bank office in Makati City demanding that…
Fisherfolk Sail Cebu-Bohol Strait to Oppose Aussie Offshore Mining Firm
The offshore mining in Cebu-Bohol Strait and other parts of the Visayan basin will affect the livelihood of more than 100,000 small fishermen and 500,000 dependents, and will further exacerbate the problem of food security of 87 million Filipinos. BY GERRY ALBERT CORPUZ Bulatlat.com Volume VIII, Number 30, August 31 – September 6, 2008 ARGAO,…
Fighting for Land, a Decent Income, for their Lives and their Livelihood – the Daily Struggles of Farmers of Negros
A government ad extolling farmers as heroes for providing food for our tables has been airing regularly on television. It also describes what the government is supposedly doing to support Filipino farmers. But the farmers of Guihulngan, Negors Oriental tell a different story: of fighting for their land, higher wages and farm gate prices, and…
Farmers Camp Out at DAR to Protest Land Grabbing in S. Tagalog
BY NOEL SALES BARCELONA Contributed to Bulatlat.com August 11, 2008 – 12:59 p.m. More than a thousand members of peasant groups and supporters have started camping out at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Aug. 11, to protest the cases of land grabbing in the provinces of the Southern Tagalog region. The Katipunan ng mga…
Soiled Program: The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program’s Destined Failure
Notwithstanding CARP’s goal of land redistribution, full land ownership has continued to decline, owing to the intensification of tenancy and lease arrangements. BY ALAYSA TAGUMPAY E. ESCANDOR Philippine Collegian Posted by Bulatlat Vol. VII, No. 50, January 27-February 2, 2008 The right to land is one of the most contested rights in Philippine history. In…
Lason at Reporma sa Lupa
Kung sa Minamata, mamamatay muna ang mga biktima at ang sibilyang nagkaso bago makatamo ng katarungan, sa Pilipinas, paano mo aantaying mamatay ang pinakamaraming bilang ng mamamayan? Hindi na nga inaantay mabawasan ang bilang, minamasaker pa ang mga nag-aaklas na magsasaka. NI ROLAND TOLENTINO Bulatlat Kulturang Popular Kultura Vol. VII, No. 48, January 13-19, 2008…
End of Year Report, 2007: Crisis in the Philippines
The year 2007 saw more of the same for this marvelous but tragic country: extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances; increasing poverty and very substantial hunger; widespread corruption across the entire system of governance and the “market”; and an increasing militarization across the islands. Some commentators speak of a growing “Myanmarization” of the country. BY GILL…
Poor and Landless after 19 Years of CARP
Jolito Divinagracia and Ranel Enoc are among the farmers in Tamugan, Calinan district, whose parents are beneficiaries of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). But almost 20 years into the program, both their families are still having a hard time acquiring the land supposedly awarded to them. BY GRACE S. UDDIN Davao Today Vol.…
A Centuries-Old Problem
A government which is not serious in implementing a genuine agrarian reform program with a weak law such as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 is a recipe for more feudal exploitation and peasant unrest. A government which is not serious in agrarian reform with a strong law and program may be forced to…
Uneasy Calm at Hacienda Luisita
“Ang DAR naka-TRO, ang bungkalan hindi,” (The Department of Agrarian Reform [DAR] is under a temporary restraining order [TRO], cultivation is not.) Jorge Gatus, 47, president of the farm workers’ cooperative in Barangay Mapalacsiao, Hacienda Luisita told DAR officials in a recent dialogue. BY ABNER BOLOS Gitnang Luzon News Service Posted by Bulatlat Vol. VII,…