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Officials and alumni of the Benguet State University (BSU), including his mentors, added their voice in the demands of various sectors and personalities to surface Jonas Joseph Burgos, an alumnus of their institution, who was believed to have been abducted by military agents.
Farmers from Negros, Southern Tagalog, Tungkong Mangga and Hacienda Luisita protested in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Quezon City on Saturday, and blamed the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPer) for causing massive landlessness, poverty and hunger, marking what they dubbed as World “Foodless” Day.
'Bungkalan' Improved Lives of Farmers
After the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council ordered the revocation of the SDO in Hacienda Luisita, the farmer beneficiaries launched what they call a "bungkalan" or the cultivation of idle Luisita land. It was both a political statement and a matter of survival for the farm workers who were facing extreme poverty in the hacienda owned by President Benigno S. Aquino III and his family. Farmers who participated swear that their lives improved after the "bungkalan." 
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Last June, the unions in Hacienda Luisita declared they will encourage and undertake systematic cultivation of portions of idle land in the plantation to produce food crops and stave off hunger during the rainy season. The “bungkalan” (cultivation) immediately became a big hit among hacienda workers’ families, enabling them to buy food and simple household needs.
As lawyers haggle over the legality of the revocation of the stock distribution option in Hacienda Luisita, the farm workers continue to reap benefits from tilling the land and earn money from the on-going sugar cane harvest. By Abner Bolos Bulatlat.com As lawyers...
“Tiyaga lang talaga” (patience is all it takes), a cane worker says as he joins other farmers till idle lands waiting to be cultivated in Hacienda Luisita. They would not let the rich soil be left unattended. BY REYNA MAE TABBADA Bulatlat.com The residents of...
They did not die in vain. The families and co-workers of the Hacienda Luisita martyrs said that in spite of the tragedy, they are slowly benefiting from what their kin and comrades gave their lives for.
After the strike ended more than two years ago, the HLI farm workers have been planting rice and vegetables providing them with income and food. But more than the earnings, they find fulfillment in cultivating the land that is rightfully theirs. BY DABET CASTAÑEDA...
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