“36 years of struggle for land and justice:
remembering Mendiola Massacre and the need for genuine agrarian reform”
By Kat Ulrike
Despite downplays and slander, peasants continue to assert the right to peace, land, bread, and justice in this 36th commemoration of Mendiola Massacre. Known as “Black Thursday” by journalists, this incident made last January 22, 1987 showed the order’s response to the growing clamour of peasants for agrarian justice- that of bullets and truncheons all in the name of “peace and order”, and still continues to be felt by its victims.
For, like the Aquino administration and its “Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program”, the current Bongbong Marcos regime "promised" land reform and farmer support in the same manner as CARP, but reality demonstrates that the interests of peasants and landowning politicians can never be reconciled, with exemptions granted to landlords thst have left thousands of peasants empty-handed and resigned to lives of poverty.
Worse, to see farmers as they complained end harassed by state agents in the name of “counterinsurgency” and “antisubversion.” The passage of the Anti Terrorism Act and the creation of the NTFELCAC under the past Duterte administration led a string of harassments against the peasantry has showed that the peasant question remains regardless of how agrarian reform is being treated- that of silencing dissent as it only laid the groundwork for landlord-legislators and subsequent governments to maintain their grip over the rural population. Much like the aftermath of the Mendiola Massacre, for which no one was ever held accountable, local convictions of rogue law enforcement officers who in support of entrenched interests remain extremely rare.
And it is not surprising that these may occur, just like under previous administrations. As the peasant question including Land reform has long been a contentious issue in the Philippines. Those who oppose agrarian reform even blame the program for slowing down productivity while applauding neoliberal economic policies for “providing access to food” in a form of imports- while forcing farmers to give up their land to developers for conversion to residential/or commercial purposes. Last year, Senator Cynthia Villar justified land conversion by saying that "farmers who sell their land to developers can buy agricultural land elsewhere and cultivate there instead," displaying her conceited attitude in light of issues relating to food security and sovereignty. The Rice Tarrification Law, which she defended on the grounds that it "liberalised rice importations and collected tariffs to fund development of the rice industry," would "benefit farmers in the long run," has caused farmers' earnings to decline in the face of less expensive rice imports.
Such actions by the administration would imply that, regardless of their half-baked actions, the lack of justice and accountability for atrocities against the people (whether in Mendiola, Hacienda Luisita, or elsewhere), as well as persistent landlessness and agrarian unrest in the countryside, will continue to bring generations of farmers and the masses concerned to Liwasang Bonifacio to Mendiola year after year. And regardless of paper “laws” and half-baked/or empty promises, the long-standing concentration of land ownership among large landlords and agribusinesses traps smallholders, landless farmers and agricultural workers in a cycle of poverty, preventing them from controlling production or benefiting from their labour and produce.
At present, prices of locally-produced foodstuffs such as onions rose high as middlemen and even markets trying to exploit the situation whether by artificial scarcity to that of depriving farmers accessibility for their produce. Authorities promised farmers and consumers to address the matter, but this becomes more than just smuggling, middlemen, or land developers exploiting the situation, but rather how the government treats food security, food sovereignty and the peasant question both agricultural reforms and land use seem to run inconsistent with the best interest of the farmers.
In this commemoration, the struggle for land rights and better working conditions has once again been met with State and non-State repression, leaving farmers and the masses with no choice but to take their plight to the streets. Because the people who toil the land are also the ones who are most likely to suffer from hunger and food insecurity, they are at risk of being labelled as subversives for demanding land and justice, as their expressions of grievance are not always met with solutions, but rather with brutality.
This note reiterates its support to genuine agrarian reform, rural development, and in protecting the rights of the people to life, food, and free speech. Authorities may parrot it two and fro these word stated, but given the realities that run contrary to their promises, the people’s struggle for peace, land, bread, and justice will ever continue even at the expense of their lives.