Country: Philippines

International Day of Peasant Struggles: Joint Statement of Peasant and Solidarity Organizations

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Land grabbing continues to intensify, driven by agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and so-called “development” plans. Forests and ancestral lands are cleared, our territories are converted into commercial sites, and water sources are privatized – all to make way for profit-driven investments.

When peasants resist, they are met with repression. They are harassed, surveilled, and falsely labeled as “anti-development” and enemies of the state. Many are imprisoned on fabricated charges. Others never return home. Their right to organize is under attack and their communities live in fear. Meanwhile, those who destroy the land and violate human rights enjoy protection, and are even rewarded.

This is a systematic effort to dismantle resistance, silence dissent, and clear the way for capital accumulation. And yet, peasants continue to rise. They organize, resist, and assert their right to land, food, and life with dignity.

On this day, we honor the farmers of Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Barangay Sumalo (SANAMABASU) Hermosa, Bataan for their courage. Since 2009, the organization has been tirelessly defending their land against Litton & Co., Inc and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC)’s attempt to convert it into industrial use, leading to their criminalization by the corporation. Although the farmers, charged with non-bailable offenses, were released on bail on January 8, 2025, the community now faces renewed repression, as RDC has filed ejectment cases to displace them from their homes and farmlands.

On September 16, 2024, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council (3 Special Rapporteurs and 2 Working Groups) sent letters to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and to Litton & Co., Inc. and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC). Both letters highlighted significant human rights concerns regarding the situation in the community. Key issues included forced evictions, housing demolitions, restricted access to cultivated land, criminalization, and the prohibition of agricultural activities.

In a response dated January 16, 2025, RDC refuted the allegations. They asserted that the land in question was unsuitable for agriculture, claiming that no legitimate farmers were tilling it. They accused certain community members of exploiting the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for personal gain and described their actions as illegal. RDC defended its eviction efforts as lawful, claiming that they are targeting only those obstructing development plans.

Meanwhile, the response from the government of the Philippines dated January 23, 2025 claimed that the syndicated estafa case filed against the farmers “have already been dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence.” They also laid down some other efforts of the government on agrarian reform. However, this is untrue as farmers continue to attend court hearings in the two pending cases of syndicated estafa cases. 

On January 28, 2025, the House Committee on Agrarian Reform conducted a Congressional inquiry on the criminalization and harassment faced by farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the country. Despite this being a positive development, the Congress is now in session break until June to give leeway for the upcoming elections in May. This means that another lobbying effort would be needed in the next Congress starting July, as a new set of representatives will occupy the Congressional seats.

With these developments, we reaffirm our commitment to their cause and to all farmers facing the same dilemma. We raise our voices in unity to demand:

  1. The implementation of agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to those who till it;
  2. The protection of ancestral domains and Indigenous territories;
  3. An end to land grabbing and corporate-led development aggression;
  4. The repeal of laws and policies that favor corporations over communities;
  5. Justice for victims of land-related killings, arrests, and harassment;
  6. An end to the criminalization, militarization, and red-tagging of peasant leaders and advocates;
  7. The recognition and protection of the rights of peasants, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP); and
  8. Food sovereignty, not corporate-controlled food systems.

We honor those who have fallen, those imprisoned for defending the land, and those who continue to fight in the face of threats and fear. Your courage lives on in every seed planted, every barricade built, every piece of land reclaimed, and every collective struggle for justice won.

Land to the tillers. Justice for the oppressed.

Long live peasant resistance!

Signed: 

Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN), Philippines

Anti-jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS) Odisha, India

Bangladesh Food Security Network- KHANI, Bangladesh

Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM)

Claudio Schuftan, PHM and WPHNA

Coastal Action Network (CAN), India

Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), Nepal

FIAN Austria

FIAN Indonesia

FIAN International

FIAN Nepal

FIAN Sri Lanka

FIAN Switzerland

Focus on the Global South

Gaza Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP), Gaza, Palestine  

Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network

Lanka Organic Agricultural Movement (LOAM), Sri Lanka

National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Sri Lanka

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, Pakistan 

Participatory Research & Action Network- PRAAN, Bangladesh

Prof. Dr. Anne C Bellows, Syracuse University, USA

Seed and Knowledge Initiative (SKI)

UBINIG, Bangladesh

Youth's Forum for Protection of Human Rights, Manipur, India  

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB)

For more information please contact Yifang Slot-Tang: Slot-Tang@fian.org

Criminalization against Filipino Peasants reaches the UN

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Geneva, May 8, 2023 – The Movement for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice (Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan / KATARUNGAN), together with Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM), FIAN International, Transnational Institute (TNI), and Focus on the Global South submitted today a complaint to the United Nations (UN) human rights protection mechanisms to alert on the persecution of Filipino peasants who are advocating for the just implementation of the government’s agrarian reform program and seek redress for violations of their rights.

Over the past years, Filipino peasants have confronted numerous threats to their fundamental rights to land, life, housing, livelihood, and basic freedoms. One glaring challenge has been the continuing and systematic criminalization of their movements through the filing of fabricated charges by landlords, influential claimants, and corporations and their agents. The main aim of these Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP) disguised as civil or criminal claims is to sow fear and silence dissent, including peasants who are claiming their rights to land. The systematic criminalization of peoples’ movements results in deeper poverty and marginalization of peasant communities through physical and economic dislocation towards a future of uncertainty.

Criminalized peasants and their family members, including their children, suffer serious anxiety and mental anguish. Most often, they do not have access to legal professionals of their choice and are burdened by the high cost of litigation, which draws on resources they need to meet their basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and the education of their children. The fear of arrest and actual loss of liberty through imprisonment lead to untold economic hardship and loss of basic dignity. Moreover, paid media often vilify criminalized peasants and delegitimize their rights claims.

Despite agrarian reform and social justice being enshrined in the Philippine Constitution and legislated into national laws, the continuing and systematic criminalization of peasants reflect judicial institutions that are unable to extend basic guarantees of due process and fair and speedy trial. The weak and snail-paced implementation of pro-poor land policies often provide anti-land reform actors such as landlords and corporations the space and opportunity to file trumped-up criminal offenses to harass peasants and overwhelm their land rights claims. The arrest and criminalization of peasant leaders—who are often primary targets of fabricated charges—create an atmosphere of fear amongst peoples and communities and serve as a deterrence against peasants from asserting their rights to land, as well as a stern warning that such assertions could lead to their imprisonment.

It is in this context that the above-mentioned movement and organizations sought the intervention of UN mechanisms to address the situation of Filipino peasants by investigating these concerns and conducting a dialogue with the Philippine government to guarantee the protection of peasants’ rights. Furthermore, the complaint calls on the Philippine government to comply with its international commitments on human rights, specifically the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP). This entails putting an end to the criminalization of peasants, expediting the implementation of agrarian reform, and preventing land grabbing through the enactment of a national land use law and fair implementation of land use plans.

Download the Press release

CONTACTS:
Danilo T. Carranza Secretary-General, Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN) E-mail: danny.carranza@gmail.com and katarungan.inc@gmail.com
Raffaele Morgantini Representative of Centre Europe Tiers Monde (CETIM) – organization with ECOSOC consultative status at the UN E-mail: contact@cetim.ch and raffaele@cetim.ch / Website: www.cetim.ch
Raphael Baladad Program Officer, Focus on the Global South Email: raphael.baladad@focusweb.org / Website: www.focusweb.org/.

Philippine Supreme Court Denies Access to Land to Sariaya Peasants

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As the Philippines marks its 33rd year of implementing agrarian reform this month, 36 rights-based organizations across the globe have joined the fight of Sariaya, Quezon farmers to reclaim a vast landholding long awarded to them by the government but was returned by the Supreme Court (SC) to its former owner – an old, wealthy elite family in the province – based on an obscure and outdated municipal ordinance.  

“(T)he undersigned organizations call on the Government of the Philippines to ensure the right to food and nutrition of Sariaya peasants by guaranteeing their right to the land they till,” said the organizations headquartered in 22 countries spread in Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Africa, which are mostly members of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition.  

Court anchors ruling on old local ordinance declared vague, insufficient by municipal gov't  

In a ruling that it made final on Sept. 28, 2020, the high tribunal voided the ownership rights of 255 Sariaya farmers to a 295.5-hectare farmland in the town’s Barangays Concepcion I, Pinagbakuran, and Manggalang Kiling, which the latter secured in 1994 as beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that the government started to implement in 1988. 

The same ruling of the SC, returned the land to its former owner, the Gala family, who became among the most politically and economically powerful clans in Quezon while the Philippines was under Spanish colonial rule and was known in the province as coconut tycoons during the said era.  

The high tribunal hinged its decision on Sariaya’s 1982 zoning ordinance that blanketly reclassified most farmlands in the town as “non-agricultural” and thus excluded from CARP coverage.  

However, the zoning supposedly no longer applies. On June 23, 2008, Sariaya’s municipal council approved a resolution stating that the 1982 ordinance had no clear boundary delineations and was insufficient to be used as basis for ascertaining the classification of landholdings in Sariaya.

The same resolution further noted that because of the said insufficiency, the ordinance should not also be used as basis to exempt lands from agrarian reform. 

The 2008 resolution was strengthened by the municipal council when it enacted an ordinance in 2018 stating that “agricultural lands distributed to agrarian reform beneficiaries” of the CARP “shall not be affected by the reclassification” of Sariaya landholdings to non-agricultural lands done through the 1982 ordinance. The provincial council of Quezon approved the 2018 municipal ordinance through a resolution it issued on April 2, 2020.  

Court ruling: A 'regressive measure' jeopardizing farmers and people's right to food, nutrition  

The 36 groups said the Philippine high court’s anti-peasant decision based on the obscure and outdated 1982 zoning ordinance “not only…constitutes a breach of the state obligation under international human rights law” but also “embodies a regressive measure, which jeopardizes the realization of Sariaya peasants’ right to food and nutrition and the millions of Filipinos, who benefit from Sariaya’s agricultural production.” 

“This decision is also ill-timed, considering that more than 5.2 million or 20.9 percent of Filipinos suffered starvation due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” the groups said.

The Sariaya farmers are among the top producers and suppliers of affordable vegetables in the regions of Southern Tagalog, Bicol, and Metro Manila. Even amid the threats of eviction, hunger, and poverty, following the high court’s ruling, the farmers still manage to regularly give away portions of their produce to hungry Filipinos via community pantries that sprouted in the Philippines amid the pandemic.   

Land redistribution and the provision of government support services and infrastructure such as farm-to-market roads, warehouses, solar dryers, a trading post, and agricultural trainings via the CARP has transformed Sariaya into one of the country’s food baskets, catering to the diversified and nutritious food requirements of millions of Filipinos.  

Within 10 years of redistribution, the poverty rate in the town drastically dropped, and Sariaya became a success story, giving hope and encouragement to many who continued to struggle for their access to land. 

Philippine gov't urged: Respect right to land, uphold int'l human rights obligations  

Finally, the 36 groups called on the Philippine government “to respect” the farmers’ “right to land,” which is recognized in Articles 5 and 17 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).  

The groups said the Philippines, which voted for and signed the UNDROP in 2018 along with 120 other countries, is duty-bound to uphold the said U.N. General Assembly resolution on human rights, particularly, Article 17 (6).  

The said UNDROP provision reaffirms the importance of states to carry out agrarian reform to “facilitate broad and equitable access to land and other natural resources necessary to ensure that peasants and other people working in rural areas enjoy adequate living conditions, and to limit excessive concentration and control of land taking into account its social function.” -30- 

Read the STATEMENT OF SUPPORT TO SARIAYA FARMERS

CONTACT PERSONS: Danny Caranza (Katarungan) – 0920-904-4301 | Yifang Slot Tang (FIAN International) +49 -176-2409-6245 (via WhatsApp)

 

 

CEDAW pushes the Philippines for more concerted efforts

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As reported last month, the status of women’s rights was under review in the 64th session of the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In its concluding observations, published last week, the Committee emphasizes the efforts of the Philippine government in undertaking legislative reforms, including the adoption of the Magna Carta of Women. Yet, it also urges the country to harmonize national legislation accordingly and to establish an effective mechanism to monitor its implementation with the participation of women’s organizations.

Under the premises of its general recommendation No. 34 (2016) on the rights of rural women, the CEDAW also calls on the Philippines to ensure rural women’s access to adequate food, as well as to water and sanitation, taking into consideration the international human rights standards of these rights. The Committee points to the urgent need to end gender-based income discrimination and improve working conditions in rural areas. 

Rural women in the Philippines account for 60% of country’s female population. The access to and control over natural resources is vital to them, as they play a key role in securing their own and their families’ food and nutritional well-being. Likewise, their right to decent work and social protection remain prerequisites for the fulfilment of rural women’s fundamental human right. 

As echoed by FIAN Philippines in a report, women and girls face unequal access to health, employment, resources and social services. Understanding that women living in poverty – both in rural and urban areas – lack access to social security, especially those working in the informal sector, the CEDAW also recommends ensuring access to non-contributory social protection and requests to adopt gender-responsive social protection floors to ensure that all rural women have access to essential health care, childcare facilities and income security. 

FIAN International and its section in the Philippines welcome the recommendations of the Committee and will follow up their implementation.

You can access the concluding observations here.
For more information, please contact Slot-Tang[at]fian.org 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  • The Magna Carta of Women (R.A. 9710) is a comprehensive law that guarantees and recognizes women’s basic rights. R.A. 9710 seeks to eliminate discrimination against women by recognizing, protecting, fulfilling and promoting the rights of Filipino women.
  • The General Recommendation No. 34 is the first international instrument that specifically addresses the rights of rural women. Furthermore, it is the first that explicitly recognizes the human right to adequate food and nutrition of rural women within the framework of food sovereignty.

Eviction takes place despite national and international efforts

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***Updates on the situation will be posted here

As feared, national authorities, strongly armored by the Federal Police, Federal Highway Police, and the state Military Police, carried out the forced eviction of the Guarani and Kaiowá community Apyka’i from their ancestral territory in Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, on July 6, 2016 in the morning. As it has already happened in 1990 and again in 1999, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2014, the Apyka’i face the violation of their human rights once more. 

In the depths of wet and windy winter, nine families were displaced. These reported that trucks were made available for them to transport their belongings to another place they “preferred” to relocate. Yet, there is no other if not their ancestral territory.

As in previous occasions, the Guarani and Kaiowá of Apyka’i decided to remain in front of their rightful territory and went back to the roadside, where around 30 of its members is now subjected to the intense road traffic that has already killed many members of the community in the last years, including children.

The eviction was performed even under the request of suspending this legal process of repossession by agribusiness. This request was presented by FUNAI before the Supreme Federal Court (STF), on May 31, 2016, which is still awaiting trial. The eviction also takes place a week after the publication of a decree of FUNAI, on June 29, 2016, which established a Working Group (WG) responsible for the demarcation of the Apyka’i territory.

The eviction infringes upon article 231 of Brazil’s Constitution blatantly and implies a breach vis-a-vis the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and this situation requires immediate reaction of the UN authorities in order to demand the Brazilian state to comply with its human rights obligations.

FIAN International, in close cooperation with its Brazilian section and CIMI – is closely monitoring the situation on the ground and informing the pertinent UN Special Rapporteurs, namely on the right to food, on adequate housing, on the rights of indigenous peoples, and on extreme poverty, of the latest updates. 

For more information, please contact bley-folly[at]fian.org 
For media enquiries, please contact delrey[at]fian.org

Implementation of women’s rights policies needed in the Philippines

Posted on by fredsaxo

***Updates on the situation will be posted here

As feared, national authorities, strongly armored by the Federal Police, Federal Highway Police, and the state Military Police, carried out the forced eviction of the Guarani and Kaiowá community Apyka’i from their ancestral territory in Dourados, Mato Grosso do Sul, on July 6, 2016 in the morning. As it has already happened in 1990 and again in 1999, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2014, the Apyka’i face the violation of their human rights once more. 

In the depths of wet and windy winter, nine families were displaced. These reported that trucks were made available for them to transport their belongings to another place they “preferred” to relocate. Yet, there is no other if not their ancestral territory.

As in previous occasions, the Guarani and Kaiowá of Apyka’i decided to remain in front of their rightful territory and went back to the roadside, where around 30 of its members is now subjected to the intense road traffic that has already killed many members of the community in the last years, including children.

The eviction was performed even under the request of suspending this legal process of repossession by agribusiness. This request was presented by FUNAI before the Supreme Federal Court (STF), on May 31, 2016, which is still awaiting trial. The eviction also takes place a week after the publication of a decree of FUNAI, on June 29, 2016, which established a Working Group (WG) responsible for the demarcation of the Apyka’i territory.

The eviction infringes upon article 231 of Brazil’s Constitution blatantly and implies a breach vis-a-vis the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and this situation requires immediate reaction of the UN authorities in order to demand the Brazilian state to comply with its human rights obligations.

FIAN International, in close cooperation with its Brazilian section and CIMI – is closely monitoring the situation on the ground and informing the pertinent UN Special Rapporteurs, namely on the right to food, on adequate housing, on the rights of indigenous peoples, and on extreme poverty, of the latest updates. 

For more information, please contact bley-folly[at]fian.org 
For media enquiries, please contact delrey[at]fian.org

Support for passing the ‘Zero Hunger’ Bill needed

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Three years after the National Food Coalition (NFC), spearheaded by FIAN Philippines, initiated a campaign for a national framework law on the right to food, the country is just one step closer to meeting this goal. Recently approved by both the Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Human Rights, the so-called ‘Zero Hunger Bill’ is due for second reading. Officially referred to as “Right to Adequate Food (RTAF) Framework Bill”, the proposed bill mandates the government to establish a clear set of policy targets to end hunger in the Philippines within ten years. 

The Bill does not narrow food to a matter of charity but emphasizes it as a legal entitlement, with a comprehensive food program under an integrated whole-of-government approach. According to NFC, the main drivers of hunger in the Philippines are poverty, inequality and the resulting failure of the poor to access available resources. With 37% – or an estimated 8.1 million – Filipino families considering themselves “food poor”, it is crucial to address hunger in the country. 

Composed of over 75 organizations and federations, and accounting for more than 10.000 members, the NFC is calling on wider civil society to support the “Zero Hunger” campaign, so the Philippine Congress  passes the Bill at the earliest opportunity. The current online petition is expected to speed up the process and help establish a legal framework to institutionalize food security and make the country hunger-free.     

Visit the website campaign and sign the petition.
For more information, please contact the national food coalition.

Successful land installation in Hacienda Matias, Philippines

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After four weeks camping out in precarious conditions in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) head office, the government resumed the installation of the remaining farmer beneficiaries in Hacienda Matias last week, on July 2, 2015. While demanding their right to land over many years, the farmer beneficiaries have faced harassments and intimidations by the former landlords. Thanks to their determination and  persistence in fighting for their rights, they can now harvest peacefully.

Although the Philippine Government has showed commitment to fast-track the land distribution, the process has yet to be finalized, as there are still over 200 farmer beneficiaries who are waiting to receive their land. The Philippine Government would not only comply with its obligation to ensure the right to adequate food and nutrition by fully implementing agrarian reform, but would also show strong political will to end the decades-long land struggle in Hacienda Matias.  

In light of the 27th anniversary of the CARP in the Philippines on June 10, 2015, FIAN International and FIAN Philippines emphasize the need to fast-track the implementation of land distribution and to provide essential support services to farmer beneficiaries. While FIAN International praises the recent effort of the DAR, the human rights organization recalls that thousands of farmers are still with no land and continue to live in poverty.

Follow updates on developments around Hacienda Matias via @FIANista

Read more on the Agrarian Reform Process in the Philippines

View and read the story of the Matias farmers and how the government showed commitment to fast-track land distribution… 

Decades-long Struggle for Agrarian Reform

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Despite 27 years having passed, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), a social justice measure that could guarantee the human right to adequate food and nutrition of millions in rural parts of the Philippines, is yet to be fully implemented. While FIAN International and FIAN Philippines highly acclaim the recent actions taken by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), we recall the urgent need for the full and effective implementation of agrarian reform to bring about social justice in the country. We continue to express our solidarity with landless farmers, and call on the government of the Philippines to end this decades-long struggle for agrarian reform.

In 1988, the Philippine Government initiated CARP. However, nearly three decades later, access to land is still being denied to many landless farmers who continue to face violations and threats to this fundamental human right. The 1987 Philippine Constitution mandates the government to undertake a meaningful and substantial agrarian reform program. The Philippines is also a State Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in which the right to adequate food is enshrined. Therefore, it is doubly obliged to fulfill the human right to adequate food and nutrition through the effective implementation of the CARP.

After almost three decades, the struggle for land reform in the Philippines has yet to come to an end. Thousands of farmers are still landless, with women and children suffering the most from hunger and poverty. Many farmers are victims of harassment and intimidation by landlords whereby some have even paid the ultimate cost and lost their lives fighting for land. The farmers’ right to adequate food is constantly violated as the Philippine Government fails to take immediate action to protect them, to fast-track the land distribution process and to provide essential support services to farmer beneficiaries.

Two cases show ineffective implementation of CARP and the government’s violation of the farmers’ right to adequate food and nutrition. 

In Hacienda Matias, the Philippine Government has, over a decade, failed to protect the farmer beneficiaries’ right to land and consequently to adequate food and nutrition on a 1,716-hectare coconut plantation in the Bondoc Peninsula of Quezon province. Despite the fact that 283 of 500 farmer beneficiaries received land titles in December 2014, many were still prevented from entering the hacienda and peacefully harvesting due to strong resistance from the previous landlords. A month of camping out in front of DAR head office in Manila pushed the government to assist the farmer beneficiaries with the support of police and military to finally access their land. This is only an initial step as over 200 farmer beneficiaries are still waiting to receive their land so they can feed themselves and their families.

In the second case, agrarian reform in the 6,453-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province has been stalled. At the time of writing, the majority of the 5,990 farmer beneficiaries still do not have control over their land because of the informal leasing contracts – normally of up to three years – they have been forced by circumstances to enter into with the “ariendador” – politically and economically influential people – in exchange for small annual loans to sustain their living. DAR has again failed to deliver essential economic support services, such as the provision of seeds, water pumps or farming implements, to the beneficiaries in order for them to be able develop their land and feed their families without resorting to onerous lease contracts. There continues to be an absence of support services for those who did not lease their land to the ariendadors.

FIAN International and FIAN Philippines call on the Philippine government to fulfill the human right to adequate food and nutrition of the farmer beneficiaries in Hacienda Matias by; fast-tracking the land distribution process through an immediate land survey of the remaining lots; the distribution of land titles to the farmer beneficiaries and; by maintaining peace on the ground. In Hacienda Luisita, there is an urgent need for an investigation into the informal leasing contracts and the lack or absence of economic support services to the farmer beneficiaries so they can reclaim their land from the “ariendadors” and make it productive.

Not only is land reform guaranteed in the Philippine Constitution, the Philippines is, as previously noted, also State Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in which the right to adequate food is enshrined. Accordingly, the Philippine Government must fulfill this fundamental right by implementing the CARP and ensure that the farmer beneficiaries receive the land that is rightfully theirs, as well as provide the necessary support services. These are vital prerequisites for enabling them to feed themselves and their families adequately.

FIAN International and FIAN Philippines demand respect, protection and fulfillment of the human right to adequate food and nutrition through the effective implementation of CARP.

View and read the story of the Matias farmers and how the government showed commitment to fast-track land distribution… 

Zero hunger bill encouraged by UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

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Despite its fast economic growth, poverty and hunger remain pressing problems in the Philippines, ranking 29th in hunger incidence in the 2014 Human Development Index. In the face of lack of legislation to ensure Philippine citizens’ right to food, UN special rapporteur Hilal Elver recommends the swift passage of the Right to Food Bill, which encompasses the so-called “zero hunger in 10 years” proposal.

In her recent visit to the country, the rapporteur highlighted the existing disparity within Manila’s populations, where some benefit from “all the comforts of modern life [while] others are forced to live in extremely precarious conditions”. As a matter of fact, around 3.8 million households experienced hunger at least once in the last quarter, and almost 8 million children suffer from malnutrition, according to national and international data. 

Amongst the highlights of a preliminary report, she points out that many are “unable to produce their own food” and “are vulnerable to food price hikes”. “Any money they have, is spent on the little food they can afford, with nothing left over to cover other basic necessities such as access to healthcare, medication, or to cover the cost of basic school materials,” she adds.  

Emphasizing the government efforts to address this problem, Fian International agrees with the rapporteur and calls on the Filipino government to work more intensively on policies towards the realization of the right to food.

Find out more by watching this video on the Zero Hunger Bill.