Justice for All Filipino Farmers: A Statement on the Kidapawan Massacre and the State’s Abandonment of Agriculture

The National Movement for Food Sovereignty, a local affiliate of the Asia-Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty, and an alliance of small holder farmers, artisanal fishers, rural women, rural youth and other anti-neoliberal individuals and organizations, stand in solidarity with the victims of the Kidapawan Massacre. We strongly condemn the Philippine Government’s abhorrent actions last April 1, 2016. We are calling for immediate and long-term justice for all protesters, whose rights were blatantly violated and whose tragic situations were ignored.

We demand accountability from the government armed forces whose responsibility in the first place is to ensure that people’s rights are protected. At the same time, we are calling for a food production system wherein small producers are not left on society’s fringes to die of hunger.

A Tragic History

The Philippine agriculture has been made backward by a landed elite dominated government, which systematically neglects and abandons it, resulting to the peasantry’s further desolation. As if economic violence were not enough, Filipino farmers have also time and time again encountered state-perpetrated violent suppression and reaction.

Year	Name	Location	Fatalities
1950	Maliwalu Massacre	Maliwalu, Bacolor, Pampanga	21
1966	Culatingan Massacre	Culatingan, Concepcion, Tarlac	7
1985	Escalante Massacre	Escalante City, Negros Occidental	30
1987	Mendiola Massacre	Manila City	13
1987	Lupao Massacre	Lupao, Nueva Ecija	17
2004	Hacienda Luisita Massacre	Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac	7

The table above illustrates the tragic history of the Filipino farmer’s struggle for land, food, and justice. Time and time again, the poor Filipino farmers have put forward their legitimate demands to the Philippine government. Yet instead of meting out social justice, the state has chosen to respond with armed violence – with the Mendiola and the Hacienda Luisita Massacres perhaps being the most prominent examples in recent history. By no means is the list complete, as there are surely more cases of such atrocities inflicted upon the peasantry that have been effectively kept under wraps or hidden in the guise of the government’s anti-insurgency programs.

Rampant Hunger and Protests

It is at this juncture that we found ourselves in when, once again, the state has turned its guns against its own citizens. As combined elements of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines shot at a crowd of poor and hungry farmers conducting a peaceful protest in Kidapawan City, we are again reminded of the degree of marginalization and oppression being imposed upon our small food producers.

In January 2016, a State of Calamity has been declared in the provinces of Mindanao due to the drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon. Damages to crops are estimated at around P3.6 million. Expectedly, most affected by this crisis have been poor farmers. According to DA estimates, 17,000 hectares of rice and corn land have been damaged by the drought and more than 20,000 farmers have been affected in Maguindanao alone. The damage to their crops is beyond repair, resulting to too much hunger and poverty.

Reports from the ground have revealed cases of farmers having to eat pig feed because they have nothing else, and of a farmer having committed suicide because of no yield. The drought has virtually taken away their source of livelihood, if not their source of subsistence. In the face of this crisis, the Philippine government has done nothing to genuinely address the needs of its primary food producers.

With the El Niño crisis having become a matter of life and death to farmers and their families, it is not surprising then that Mindanao farmers were moved into collective action. No less than 6,000 farmers rose up and blockaded the Cotabato-Davao Highway, denouncing state neglect, and demanding the local government to release 15,000 sacks of rice as calamity aid.

The blockade was already on its third day when the police and armed forces intervened. Instead of government assistance, what the hungry farmers received was a hail of gunfire. The ensuing chaos left at least 3 farmers dead, 87 missing, and 116 hurt – 18 of which are hospitalized, most of whom due to gunshot wounds. The remaining protesters are now held up in a nearby church that has granted them refuge, yet security forces still continue to harass them and have even resorted to cutting off the building’s electricity in the middle of the night. Of course, the military is defending its action by accusing protesters of instigating the chaos. Yet, nothing can justify such violent act against an unarmed group of protesters with a very legitimate demand.

Hunger, Rural Poverty, and State Abandonment

The marginalization of the peasantry is a natural product of the neoliberal economic order to which the Philippine economy is being fully integrated. Under this economic system, policies of deregulation, liberalization, and privatization were designed to shift away from government subsidy in order to freely facilitate profit extraction by corporate business and financial institutions. These neoliberal policies have proven devastating to the Philippine economy, specifically agriculture and rural development. Philippine agriculture has been dramatically spiraling downward over the past decades with its GDP share steadily contracting. At the same time, its technological advancement has stagnated, with most of the farmlands still dependent on manual labor. Rural poverty continues to rise. Environmental degradation continues to worsen. Yet, the government has instead further pursued the same neoliberal policies causing rural poverty.

State abandonment of agriculture and rural development also manifests itself in terms of the government’s lack of emergency assistance and comprehensive rehabilitation program for agriculture, which is the first victim of climate change. Until today, farmer victims of Typhoons Lando and Nona in Luzon remain unassisted and unsupported. As if this is not enough, farmlands in Nueva Ecija are now being plagued by army worms – commonly classified as climate change pests – resulting in widespread damage to crops and loss of capital. Despite the government’s claims that we are climate change ready, the government’s lack of action on the issue only proves otherwise. More importantly, however, this serves as another proof of the government’s insensitivity towards the needs of our food producers.

The neoliberal policy direction is made even more apparent in the development aggression projects being pursued by the Philippine government. Development aggression occurs when the state imposes ‘development’ projects on unwilling communities. The mining projects in the province of Zambales fit this description perfectly. Zambaleños have strongly opposed mining operations in the province citing their harmful impacts on the environment. For one, the mining operations have exacerbated the impacts of Typhoon Lando in the area – resulting in severe flooding of homes and rice fields. This has led to community’s resolve to barricade the mining area and demand the ouster of these mining firms. As usual, the people’s legitmate protest was also violently suppressed by the PNP resulting to injuries and illegal arrests of protesters.

This shooting in Kidapawan and the other examples mentioned here are clear manifestations of the generalized forms of state-violence currently being perpetrated against farmers and other small food producers. Bogus land reform programs, coupled with development aggression, as well as the lack of subsidy and support services make up the government’s policy of abandoning its peasantry and agriculture. It pushes the peasant class to the brink of existence. It is not simplistic to say then, that this whole situation was created solely by the Philippine government and its fixation with the neoliberal dogma.

Justice and Food Sovereignty

The Philippine government’s response to the legitimate demands of its farmers is beyond abhorrent. However, the general condition of Philippine agriculture is even more detestable as it perpetuates the cycle of violence being imposed upon the impoverished Filipino small food producers. We are living in a society with an agricultural sector that is so backward that our farmers remain in the quagmire of hunger and poverty.

Hence, we are calling for a food system that is just and sovereign. We call on everyone to join us in our fight for justice and food sovereignty.

We demand the Philippine government to:

Free all protesters who were unjustly detained.
Immediately investigate and prosecute all police units/forces and government officials involved in the Kidapawan Massacre.
Immediately provide food assistance to El Niño farmer families at least one sack of rice per farmer-family until they recovered from the El Niño crisis.
Stop withholding food and aid to farmers and hold local government accountable for this crime against the farmers.
Indemnify all victims of the Kidapawan Massacre and their families.
Provide financial assistance to farmers for the recovery of their livelihood and rehabilitation of their farmlands.
Implement genuine agrarian reform; stop resource grabbing.
Stop the unabated plunder and excessive exploitation of the ecosystems in the Philippines.

Initial Signatories:

South Asian Network for Social & Agricultural Development (SANSAD)

Comité catholique contre la faim et pour le développement (CCFD) -Terre Solidaire

Mokatil-Movimentu Kamponezes Timor Leste (Timor Leste Farmers movement)

North South Initiative (NSI)

Jagrata Juba Shangha (JJS)

Progresibong Alyansa ng Mangingisda sa Pilipinas (PANGISDA)

Katipunan ng Bagong Pilipina (KABAPA)

Pambansang Kilusan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM)

Pagkakaisa Labab sa Liberalisasyon sa Agrikultura (PALLAG)

Nagkakakaisang Samahan ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (NAGSAKKA)

MAKABAYAN-Pilipinas

Center for Grassroots Studies and Social Action

SEAFISH for Justice

Koalisi Rakyat untuk Keadilan Perikanan (KIARA)

Damayan ng mga Manggagawa,Mangingisda at Magsasaka (DAMMMBA)

Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (PKMP)

Dunong at Dangal ng Makabagong Dumagat (DUMAGAT)

Regeneration International