More than a thousand
farmers marched in Catbalogan for Peasant Day and “World Foodless Day”
By KAPAWA
October
18, 2010
Samar Peasants Demand:
“Food, Not Bullets!”
“Stop The Island-wide Military Campaign of The 8th Infantry
Battalion!”
“No to Large-Scale Foreign Mining in Region 8!”
CATBALOGAN, Samar –
Led by the Kapunungan han Gudti nga Parag-uma ha Weste han Samar (KAPAWA),
more than a thousand farmers from San Jose de Buan, Motiong, Calbiga,
Paranas, Pinabacdao, Hinabangan, Matuguinao, Jiabong, Catbalogan and
Calbayog converged Saturday morning in Catbalogan to join in the
celebration of Peasant Day and “World Foodless Day.”
The mobilization, the
biggest in the province since the assumption of the new Aquino
administration, was simultaneously coordinated with another mass
action in Tacloban City, as part of a regional campaign of peasant
organizations spearheaded by the Samahan han Gudti nga Parag-uma ha
Sinirangan Bisayas (SAGUPA-SB) to highlight the present struggle of
the sector against poverty, hunger and human rights violations.
According to SAGUPA-SB,
the widespread landlessness of the peasants, the absence of any
relevant government subsidy program for agriculture, and the
anti-peasant policies such as the failed CARP (and its proposed
extended version called CARPER), land conversion schemes and the
pro-imperialist Mining Act of 1995, are among the major reasons for
the rampant poverty and hunger of peasant families in Region 8.
The militarization in
the countryside meanwhile, according to KAPAWA, continues to bring
about human rights abuse and damage to livelihood which further
aggravate the alarmingly high level of poverty and hunger being
experienced in Samar especially by the poor peasants. Recent surveys
conducted by the government has ranked the province sixth among the
poorest, and fourth among the provinces with the highest incidence of
malnutrition of children. “’Food, not bullets!’ is the loud cry of the
peasants of Samar,” KAPAWA said in a statement.
A massive military
campaign which covers significant portions of all the three provinces
of the island of Samar is currently escalating. Aside from incidents
of harassment and physical abuse of civilians by soldiers of the AFP,
there have also been a number of recent reports of theft and
desruction of crops by elements of the 8th Infantry Division in the
interior barangays of Jiabong, Motiong, and San Jose de Buan. In
Matuguinao, military helicopters have been reported to have been
indiscriminately landing and trampling on rice fields.
“President Noynoy
Aquino has given us much talk about reforms and his so-called
righteous path; but with mounting state terrorism, the exact opposite
is definitely what’s happening in Samar,” KAPAWA added.
The delegates from the
town of Jiabong, meanwhile, said that they have an added reason to be
worried about the recent series of military operations as this might
be used to force the communities to accept the entry of the
foreign-owned Manganese Mineral Belt Mining Corporation despite an
existing provincial ordinance which prohibits large-scale foreign
mining in the whole province for 50 years. According to
Jiabongnon-Nagkakaurusa nga Parag-uma Hingyap Kauswagan (JINGYAP), the
people of the town are against the setting up of a 2,000 hectare
manganese mining concession in Barangay Bawang because it threatens
Jiabong’s tahong industry, the vast farmlands in the town’s plains,
and the forest watershed not only of Jiabong but also of neighboring
Catbalogan.
The mobilization
is considered to be a kick-off activity for a series of peasant and
multi-sectoral mass actions in Samar which aims to drumbeat, among
others, the call for the passing into law of the Genuine Agrarian
Reform Bill (GARB); the institutionalization of a comprehensive
agrarian subsidy program; the wage increase for farm workers; and an
aid system for victims of calamities and infestation. The current
peasant campaign, according to KAPAWA, shall treat as urgent the
demand to put a stop to the escalating militarization and human rights
violations in the island, and to large-scale foreign mining in the
province and the whole region.