Victory for Polo Farmers After Decade Long Struggle
After more than ten years of struggle, approximately 160 Filipino farmers and their families were finally able to enter the farmland granted to them through the process of agrarian reform.
On 29 July 2012, police and military troops accompanied the peaceful return of farmers to the Polo Plantation in Tanjay City, Negros Oriental, Philippines. Their success comes at a time when the national Agrarian Reform Program (today known as CARPER, formerly CARP) runs the risk of failing, as land distribution targets seem unlikely to be met by the time the program is set to expire in 2014.
CARP was enacted in 1988 as a social justice program to redistribute big landholdings owned by the national elite to poor tenants, farm workers and the landless.
In the early 1990s, farmers applied for titles to the 410 hectares of the 700 hectare Polo sugar cane plantation that were covered under the CARP for redistribution. More than 160 farmer beneficiaries received legal titles to the land as a result of the application.
The landowner, however, resisted redistribution by initiating legal action, reclassifying the landholding as a commercial area, and hiring armed security to harass and evict the farmers. FIAN began supporting the farmers in 2005 with an urgent action addressed to the Supreme Court, and continued to campaign for the fulfillment of the farmers’ demands in close cooperation with its local partner organization.
After several failed attempts by the farmers to claim their land without governmental assistance, a dialogue was opened with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), which eventually ordered the reinstatement of the farmers to the land.
The basis of farmers’ rights to adequate food requires access to and control of the land on which they work. The 160 farmer beneficiaries of the Polo Plantation are now able to till their land and to feed their families.
FIAN International and FIAN Philippines welcome this as a victory for the agrarian reform process, while acknowledging that the struggle does not end with the land distribution. FIAN will continue to work with the farmers to ensure that all aspects of reform are properly implemented, ensuring the right to adequate food.