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The bungkalan has been the NFSW’s campaign since 2008 for sugar workers to survive Tiempo Muerto or “dead season”, the period between planting and harvesting sugarcane. It usually lasts five months from April to September resulting to massive hunger among the farm workers.
Military presence in Eastern Visayas is likened to the prevalence of pests in the area -- a burden and a pretext to greater destruction of farmers’ crops and even their lives. Following the arrival of the military in each village is always a long list of rights violations and the continued culture of impunity.
In both dialogues, many questions were left unanswered and many concerns were left hanging. What cannot be ignored, however, is the reality that the farmers' plight is always anchored on one unanswered call: genuine agrarian reform.
As of December 2017, Karapatan has already documented 126 cases of extrajudicial killings in the whole country -- at least half of which committed in the Southern Mindanao Region (SMR).
“We have exhausted all means to raise our issues to the local DA (Department of Agriculture) and Samar LGUs (local government units) but our demands fell on deaf ears."
"We were hoping that Sec. Piñol would face us and hear out our demands but it turned out that he has snubbed us and disregarded our demands."
“We cannot allow Duterte to have his way and continue the massacre of farmers through political killings and burdensome economic policies.”
“Majority of the killings happened during Martial Law in Mindanao and are linked to agrarian cases and land disputes.”
“With a DDS at the helm of DAR, the prospect of genuine land reform and rural industrialization is now next to impossible.”
Progressive fishers decried what they called "fascism in the sea."
“Thirteen years after Hacienda Luisita massacre, no one has been arrested, put to trial and punished for the carnage that killed seven farmworkers on November 16, 2004.”
Groups are calling for the release of Ambala leader Florida Sibayan, who was arrested by police during a protest in Hacienda Luisita this morning.
“Since its inception, the ASEAN has never been for the interest of the people, but for profit and monopoly capital. It serves to strengthen foreign control over raw materials, labor and supply chains in the region at the expense of the people and nations of Asia Pacific.”
This harvest season, the farmers of Baloc, Sto. Domingo reaped the fruit of their struggle for land.
"Today, the Filipino peasant masses vow to further our struggle for genuine land reform.”
Farmers are fast losing hope after President Duterte reneged on his promise to return the coco levy fund to small coconut farmers and there have been moves inside the Department of Agrarian Reform to reverse the administrative and department orders, favoring farmers, which were issued by former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano.
Small fishers complain of extortion from local governments based on the Fisheries Code.
The peasants’ call is the same: distribute land to the farmers and put an end to the killings of farmers and activists.
The president was depicted as a pest that ruins farmers’ lives. Other illustrations presented him as “Boy Ratrat”, a rat holding a rifle and “Bomba King”, a snail with a bomb as his shell – depicting the killings of farmers around the country, with victims now numbering to 91.
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