Decades-long Struggle for Agrarian Reform
The government of the Philippines should finally complete land distribution and provide essential support services to farmer beneficiaries.
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.