"When blood again stainth the sugar field"

"When blood again stainth the sugar field"

(Or "Notes after the massacre at Sugarlandia")

From Nadja de Vera

At first, this post is quite lamenting that in a regime whose bycall is "change", same old problems continue to prevail- and worse, to see that problem be accompanied by a bloody spree.

For a day ago, 9 sugar agricultural workers were massacred last night in Hacienda Nene, Purok Fire Tree, Barangay Bulanon, Sagay City, Negros Oriental. Among them were 4 women and 2 minors. That incident took place not only within a hacienda, but within a cultivated area known as "bungkalan"- and that "bungkalan" also refers to a site occupied by organized farmers and farmworkers demanding the completion of the government's promise of land reform, if not demanding genuine agrarian reform with emphasis on free land distribution and genuine rural empowerment (as opposed to the development schemes of the order).

The massacre of sugar agricultural workers in Negros is premised on this: that they are a part of a legitimate, unarmed struggle for land rights. But for the system, via its Armed Forces and the Police, this and other kind of incidents see only one thing: that if people fight against the ruling oppressive system by any means, that by expressing their legitimate grievances frankly and true, they simply but unjustly think they must be "reds"- and therefore meant to be in the order of battle if not deemed criminals.

And in fact, prior to this massacre, accounts of human rights violations on members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (which the victims were part of) were reportedly perpetuated by suspected elements of SCAA/CAFGU members under the 12th IBPA. From these events before and after then no wonder in a regime who afforded to babble words like change happen these bloodied outcomes. Come to think that when dozens of gunmen fire at unarmed people in a tent, then pepper those hit with “finishing shots” to their heads, dousing their bodies with gasoline and burn at least three of the victims, is this the change that uplifted farmers and farmworkers alike?

Perhaps from all these actions no wonder why the system shun Human Rights thinking that these hinders their agenda of a "quick victory" against those who stood against their goal: that of restoring if not maintaining the order and the privileges the system accustomed to. First they booted out concerned personages in the cabinet simply because of their belief contrary to those of the order, followed by a myriad of harassments and arrests, alongside killings plus a conspiracy theory being babbled in every media, these and more shows the paranoical nature of the order through today's regime, with its apologists who may continue to churn two and fro their justifications behind the attack, claiming that there were carrying guns, as insurgents, anything just to make the killing necessarily.

But despite possible false reports to be churned, it is true enough that with those bloodied actions brought by the system, that its representative Duterte gave that marching order and there is no turning back. From this then no wonder why the political momentum of impunity remains as in the past.

And from there no wonder why resistance is always been the call of many these days. In the case of these contested fields one would remember how Marcos was been synonymous with the famine at Sugarlandia with the massacre at Escalante town, of Arroyo and Aquino being haunted by the tragic events like Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, and as for Duterte, after making hell after the banana groves of Lapanday, stainth blood over Hacienda Nene in Sugarlandia. 

And with all these events that provoke resistance, this is not as festive as what happened during EDSA.