In observance of Peasant Week

Peasants to Stage Farm Strike, Lead Multi-Sectoral Rallies

Thousands of peasants affiliated with the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas will stage a farm strike on Oct. 18 to start the observance of Peasant Week. The observance will be capped by multi-sectoral protest actions to demand an end to landlessness, poverty, and hunger.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Farmers in a mass action in Negros Occidental (top), while peasant leader Rafael Mariano and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo burn copies of certificates of land ownership as a symbolic protest against the pro-landlord CARP June 2003 (bottom).  BULATLAT FILE PHOTOS

It will be farmless day on Oct. 18 for thousands of farmers in Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog and the Bicol region as they leave their farms in observance of Peasant Week. Many of them will mass up at several points in provincial town centers and in Metro Manila in protest against landlessness, poverty and hunger.

Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos, secretary general of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement in the Philippines) which is spearheading the protest actions, denied on Oct. 16 an earlier report by a national daily that the farmers threatened not to harvest their rice crop this year if traders refuse to raise the farm gate price of palay or unmilled rice from P7 to P10.50.

Ramos said that their farm strike will only be marked by farmers leaving their land for several days in order to join protest actions during the Peasant Week. About 4,000 of them belong to the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL or Central Luzon Peasant Alliance) and the Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK or Southern Luzon Peasant Association).

On Oct. 19, peasant activists from Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, and the Bicol region will leave for Manila to participate in a vigil the next day outside the office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City.

The Luzon-wide protests will climax in a rally in Manila on Oct. 21, in which at least 5,000 peasants affiliated with KMP will march with other sectors from the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City to Mendiola Bridge in Manila near Malacañang or presidential office.

Tens of thousands of other farmers throughout the country will take part in the farm strike.

Increase in palay price

On the eve of the start of the Peasant Week, AMGL farmers in Bulacan, Tarlac, and Nueva Ecija have mounted streamers and placards by the highways calling for an increase in palay selling prices – from the current P7-9 ($0.125-0.161 based on a $1:P56 exchange rate) to P15 per kilo.

On the national level, the KMP is calling for palay selling prices to be raised to P10.50-12.

Ramos, who is himself a farmer from Bulacan just north of Manila, told Bulatlat rice farmers earn about P2,000 every harvest season. The farmers would have to make the amount last for three months until the next harvest season.

Dividing the amount by 90 days, rice farmers’ earnings amount to only P22.22 a day. The present cost of living for a family of six – the average Filipino family – is P594 based on independent computations.

NFA privatization

The KMP is also opposed to the privatization of the National Food Authority (NFA), a government agency tasked with procuring rice from farmers. Its mandated procurement level is 10 percent of rice produce for every harvest time.

At present, the NFA buys palay at P10.50 per kilo. However, Ramos revealed, the agency is able to procure only one percent of rice produce. Because of this, he said, “Rice farmers are forced to sell to retailers belonging to the rice cartel.”

Rice retailers buy palay at P7-9 a kilo and sell rice at a minimum of P18 per kilo.

Saying that the NFA is short of funds, government proposes to solve the problem by privatizing the rice procurement agency.

“If the NFA is privatized, how else can the rice farmers sell their produce at reasonable prices?” Ramos said, however. He further said that the NFA rice procurement level should be increased to 25 percent – “and government should ensure this.” Bulatlat

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