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The Philippines - San Vicente, Bondoc - Landless tenants suffer harassment and hunger

San Vicente is a village located in San Narciso, one of the municipalities of Bondoc Peninsula. The vast portions of land in San Vicente are owned or tightly controlled by the Uy family, to which the late former mayor of San Narciso (Juanito Uy) belonged. His political influence has enabled him to exclude the land from the national agrarian reform program, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) until mid 1996 when several Uy tenants petitioned for land distribution. Systematic harassment of armed men working for the Uy family began soon after. It is said that a paramilitary group fighting for communist revolution, the so-called New People’s Army is also threatening and harassing the peasants in order to prevent activities in favour of the implementation of the CARP in the area. The tenants were personally threatened, their houses burned and harvests forcibly confiscated. Four local peasant leaders have been reportedly murdered since 1998. Due to the unbearable harassment and credible death threats, some families had to flee their homes, while others were forcibly evicted or are denied access to their fields by the armed goons. Currently 7 families remain without access to their land and around 200 families are under constant threat from the goons and the NPA. Due to the crop-sharing scheme and because of tenants’ harvests are bought way below the market price from the land owner, all of the Uy tenants are suffering from acute poverty and hunger.

The case was brought to FIAN’s attention in 2003 and since then, FIAN has launched several urgent actions (letter campaigns) and dispatched twice a mission group to investigate the case on-spot. Despite such efforts, the case remains unsolved till today and none of the petitions submitted to the Department of Agrarian Reform have been granted. In general, however, there are counter efforts by the landowner as well as the government of the Philippines to block the conversion.

By failing to secure sincere, transparent and immediate steps to protect the Uy tenants from further harassment as well as failing to provide them land in accordance with the CARP, the government of the Philippines has violated the right to feed oneself of the Uy tenants. The Philippines should expediate the implementation of CARP in the area as well as provide security for the peasants and for their possessions from the goons and the NPA in order to ensure their capability to feed themselves adequately.