This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 36, October 16-22, 2005
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
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 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 20th
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:
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 © 2005 Bulatlat
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