“Tiempo Muerto” (dead times) are bad times for cane workers. They go hungry because there is no work and are neglected by landowners. Last Aug. 17, close to a thousand hungry-stricken sugar workers and farmers trooped to the office of the provincial government in Negros Occidental to demand immediate food and production subsidies. By Karl…
Category: Agrarian Reform
Arroyo Faces International Tribunal for Political Killings
Embattled President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo faces indictment before an International People’s Tribunal set to convene on Aug. 19 in Quezon City. The charges that will be filed against her – human rights violations – can even be used when she faces impeachment in Congress. By Lisa Ito Bulatlat.com Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may be dethroned from the Presidency…
Impeachment Move vs Arroyo to Include Killings
Apart from cheating, lying and stealing, the widespread killings of 411 church people, lawyers, human rights advocates, political activists, workers and peasants all over the country are also one of the grounds for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s impeachment. BY DABET CASTAÑEDA Bulatlat.com Political killings in the country have become so widespread that the impeachment prosecution team…
Arroyos Face Land Reform Scandal
The supposed beneficiaries of a hacienda owned by the Arroyos are now worried that they may end up landless. They argue that President Arroyo’s credibility is not just being eroded because of the allegedly wiretapped conversations and the jueteng (illegal numbers game) controversy. More important, she has failed to stand up to the interest of…
Luisita Workers Reject GMA Expressway; Press for Her Ouster
After stopping plantation and milling operations at Hacienda Luisita, cane workers and their families gear up for blocking the construction of one of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s flagship projects – a super expressway. By Abner Bolos Bulatlat.com The much-delayed Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP), one of the 10 flagship programs of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, may yet face its…
House Scolds DLR for Delay in Luisita Probe
Members of the Department of Land Reform’s Task Force Hacienda Luisita got a beating from the House Committee on Agrarian Reform for the much delayed report on its investigation on the implementation of the Stock Distribution Option in Luzon’s largest sugar estate, Hacienda Luisita, Inc. BY DABET CASTAÑEDA Bulatlat.com After nine months of investigation, the…
Stock Distribution Option: Land Reform without Land
That the plight of farm workers at Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac has already faded from the mainstream media limelight does not mean that there is now peace in the area. Last April 22, some 1,500 farm workers agreed to withdraw their shares in Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI), demand that stock distribution option (SDO) be revoked and opt for land distribution instead.
AFP, Police Can’t Win ‘Hearts and Minds’ at Hacienda Luisita
Hacienda Luisita continues to be a battle ground, albeit unarmed, between residents and government troops. Since March 10, three companies of soldiers have been deployed here while angry people and village officials have been trying to drive them away by sheer grit and numbers.
Confessions of a ‘Yellow Armyman’
A former member of the Yellow Army and supervisor of Hacienda Luisita who admitted to being one of campaigners for the Stock Distribution Option in 1989 tell how he did so — and why they are going against it today.
Abelardo Ladera: The Hero of Luisita
Before the coffin bearing the remains of Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera, the ninth Hacienda Luisita martyr, was buried, it was opened for his family and barriomates one last time. It took however almost an hour before the people could finish their goodbye: young ones took pictures of him with their cellular phones; the older ones patted the coffin, with whispers of “Salamat po, salamat po” (thank you, thank you) while a woman asked with a break in her voice, “Bakit ka nila pinatay, wala na kaming kasama.” (Why did they kill you, we no longer have someone to help us.)
Tarlac Councilor Is 9th Luisita Martyr; Victim’s Kin Finger Cojuangcos, Military as Suspects
From his humble beginnings as a sugar worker, City Councilor Abelardo R. Ladera emerged as one of the few successful local political figures who openly stood against the Cojuangco-Aquino dynasty in Tarlac. Ladera was gunned down at high noon of March 3 making him Tarlac’s first local official assassinated in the post-dictator era.