BOOK REVIEW

By They Who Harvest

Review of Umani: Mga Likhang Sining ng Buhay at Pakikibaka ng Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Kalayaan, published by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
70 pages

Umani is a literary anthology about peasants, for peasants and by peasants. Those who have read it will agree that it is a faithful chronicle in poetry, fiction and essay of the Philippine peasant experience in the last 20 years.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Not since the defunct Gapas Foundation published its last anthology sometime in the 1990s have we seen a collection of literary works about the peasant condition written by no less than peasants themselves. That is, until Umani: Mga Likhang Sining ng Buhay at Pakikibaka ng Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Kalayaan (To Harvest: Works of Art on the Lives and Struggle of the Peasantry for Land and Freedom) came along.

Umani was launched Aug. 10, during a program commemorating the 20^th founding anniversary of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Philippine Peasant Movement).

Edited by renowned literary scholar Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera – 1993 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts – and with cover design by Boy Dominguez, the book is published by the KMP. The book contains poems, short stories, and essays by peasant leaders like Danilo Ramos, Antonio Flores, Fernando Mangili, Imelda Lacandazo, and Orly Marcellana as well as by other activists working with the peasant movement, like Amanda L. Echanis.

The book is divided into three parts: the first is about clearing the rubbish in the field, the second is about the travails of the peasant class and their fight to change their plight, and the last is about the heroes who risked – or gave – their lives in the peasant struggle for land and freedom.

The first part is fittingly commenced by Ramos’ poem “Ang KMP” (The KMP), which sums up in seven stanzas the 20-year history of the organization he currently chairs. The poem is written almost prosaically, though one suspects that if the author gave himself more space he could have worked more wonders.

The best part of the poem is that where Ramos deals with the line struggle that threatened to break up the cause-oriented movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The KMP, being a sectoral organization representing the people who are considered the “main force” in the quest for freedom and justice, was one of the groups most affected by the line struggle.

Ramos has this to say of that particular chapter in the KMP’s history:

KMP ibayong lumakas at lumawak

Mga ipa at uban sa samahan

Itinapon sa basurahan,

Tulyapis ay inihiwalay sa timyas ng palay

Higit na tumatatag ang dakilang samahan

(The KMP grew and gained more strength

As the husks in the association

Were consigned to the dustbin,

And the chaff was separated from the grain of rice

The great association was further consolidated)

The first section has poems on related topics by Flores, Cordillera peasant leaders, and Mangili.

It ends with an essay on the over-all peasant situation, which is not bylined. It enumerates the problems confronted by peasants and agricultural workers: high land rent, high production costs, high rent for farm implements, usury, low prices for agricultural products, the extraction of free labor power, and low wages for farmworkers. It calls on the peasantry to continue their struggle for land while integrating it with the over-all quest for national liberation and democracy.

The second part opens with a poem by Echanis, titled “Mang Tano.” Those aware of the peasant condition in the country would immediately recognize Mang (elderly) Tano as a composite of Filipino peasants, who get buried in debt to usurious, “cruel landlords” and see their children go through life without even hearing sounds from a classroom, much less seeing the inside of it:

Ilang buwan ng pag-aararo

Pagpapakahirap at pagpapakapagod

Pero ano ang nakukuha niyang kapalit?

Ang kanyang mga anak

Ay hindi man lamang alam (ang) abakada,

Ni kung ano ang itsura ng isang pisara.

Siya si Mang Tano.

(He tills the land, suffers for months

But what does he get in return?

His children

Do not even know the alphabet,

Nor even what a blackboard looks like.

He is Mang Tano.)

Echanis ends with this call to Mang Tano:

Imulat mo ang iyong namumugtong mga mata

At kumawala sa sapot ng mapagsamantalang gagamba.

Ibuka mo ang iyong bibig,

Na matagal nang hjindi nagsasalita.

Itaas mo ang iyong kamao

At ipakitang ikaw ay isang magsasaka.

(Open your swollen eyes

and break free from the web of the oppressive spider.

Open your mouth

Which has long refused to speak.

Raise your fist

And show that you are a farmer.)

This is a call to the likes of Mang Tano to destroy the stereotypical image of the peasant as subservient, a call to militancy which in the poet’s view is what the farmer should possess, being one who feeds the nation.

Marcellana has a string of poems on the peasant’s difficulties and dreams: “Magsasaka,” (Farmer), “Hinaing ng Bukid” (Complaints of the Field), and “Lupa ay Buhay” (Land is Life).

Near the end of the second part, Marcellana offers a poem, “Kaibigan” (Friend), which is dedicated to those described in the book as “friends and advocates of the farmers,” such as the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and Friends of the Rural Poor (FRP). In this poem, Marcellana sheds the firebrand image associated with him as both mass leader and writer, and waxes solemn:

Kaibigan, kaytagal kitang hinanap

Kinasabikan ko ang araw ng ating pagdadaop-palad

Magbabalitaan tayo, ng nakaraan at bukas

Taimtim kong pangarap bawat hibla ng iyong pangungusap.

(Friend, long have I sought you

I looked forward to the day we would rub elbows

We would exchange tales of yesterday and tomorrow

I dream of every strand of words from you.)

Lacandazo “competes” with Marcellana in the number of poems submitted to the anthology. In the book’s second part alone, she has four poems: “Pinagmulang Uri” (The Classes We Come From), “Kasama sa Pakikibaka” (Comrade in the Struggle), “Tarik ng Tagumpay!” (Height of Victory!) and “Kababaihang Magsasaka” (Women Farmers).

The second part closes with the pieces “Mga Inakay na May Matibay na Pakpak” (Chicks with Strong Wings), a short story bearing the byline M.A.L., on children of peasants-turned-revolutionaries; and the poem “One with the People” by Ka Ron, about how solidarity with the people’s struggle strengthens individuals.

Marcellana has five poems in the last part of the book. With these he pays tribute to Pedro “Tata Pido” Gonzales, who survived an assassination attempt in 2004; and slain activists Nicanor delos Santos, Romy Malabanan, Adrian Alegria, Edwin Mascariñas, Isaias Manano Jr., Roger Perez, and Bely Leonaes who all worked closely with the peasant movement.

A poem titled “A-otso” (The Eighth) by Ka Ela pays tribute to peasant leader Marcelino Beltran, a former Army sergeant and a staunch supporter of the Hacienda Luisita workers who was killed just as he was about to testify as key witness on the Hacienda Luisita massacre late last year. The title is an allusion to the date he was killed.

There is also a poem without byline that praises the striking workers of Hacienda Luisita.

Marcellana closes the anthology with his poem “Dakilang Mithiin” (Great Dream), which is a eulogy to his wife Eden Marcellana and friend Eddie Gumanoy – who were killed in Oriental Mindoro in 2003 while heading a fact-finding mission probing the military’s alleged series of human rights violations in the said province.

Among the authors in this collection, the most well-known are Ramos, Lacandazo, and Marcellana. Lacandazo is the KMP’s national vice chairperson, while Marcellana heads the Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-TK or Association of Peasant Organizations in Southern Tagalog).

Umani is a literary anthology about peasants, for peasants and by peasants. Bourgeois critics might find some of the poems lacking in literary refinements, but all who have read the anthology will agree that it is a faithful chronicle in poetry, fiction and essay of the Philippine peasant experience in the last 20 years. Bulatlat

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