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By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
"We are alarmed that CMU, a center for education and formation of values, by its actions, is promoting a teaching of values that contradicts the intention of social justice. By denying the farmers the land that is very much attached to their lives, the CMU has become a despotic landlord rather than an educational institution." - solidarity mission
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“By not issuing any decision today, the Supreme Court prolongs the sufferings of farm workers and provides opportunity for the Cojuangco-Aquinos to maneuver.” – Lito Bais, president of the United Luisita Workers Union (Ulwu) said.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
A farmers’ group believes that this is a case of landgrabbing and speculation in anticipation of and preparation for the construction of the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway (TPLEx). The group said that as the market value of lands around the superhighways are expected to skyrocket, business firms are trying to takeover farmlands even if it meant displacing farmers.
Central Luzon farmers on Feb. 16 trooped to the House of Representatives to attend the Committee on Agrarian Reform’s public hearing of House Bill 374 or Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB).
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) yesterday condemned the "compromise deal" forged by the management of the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), calling it "a devious scheme to preserve the decades-old Cojuangco land monopoly in Tarlac and continue subjecting...
By MARYA SALAMAT
“Despite the media-created belief that positive change for the Filipino peasantry would be possible under the Aquino administration, we are discouraged by Noynoy’s frequent attempts to dissociate himself from the Hacienda Luisita problem and in refusing to admit to the failure of CARP [Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program] despite the dehumanizing plight to which it has consigned the majority of farmers,” a peasant leader said.
While most people rared to go back to work last Nov. 6 after a long vacation, farm workers of Hacienda Serafica who have long been suffering from unjust working conditions have decided to stop working and hold a picket. According to them, they intend to stay until...
By PAULINE GIDGET R. ESTELLA
Farmers assert that the Cojuangco-Aquino clan has exploited the “overextended” temporary restraining order used by the Supreme Court, enjoining the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council and former Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman from distributing Hacienda Luisita lands to farm worker beneficiaries.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
In 2009, the landlord-dominated Philippine Congress extended the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program for another five years. Did the landed legislators, among them President Arroyo's close relatives, go against their interests in passing CARPER? Or did they simply lengthen the agony of Filipino peasants, given that the new program seems worse than the original?
Among other provisions, the CARPER bill mandates that private agricultural lands – the type that the Arroyos and the Cojuangcos own – can only be distributed if the original CARP managed to distribute 90 percent of its target. But CARP, despite the two decades it had, only distributed less than half of it. It’s an impossible provision that only underscores what progressive farmers have been saying all along – that CARPER is bogus.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines [CBCP] is affirming its commitment to support Filipino farmers through the holding of the Second National Rural Congress [NRC II], but a battle ground between pro and anti CARP advocates appears to have emerged in...
BY BULATLAT The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) said Akbayan Partylist Rep. Riza Hontiveros-Baraquel's accusations are anti-peasant and anti-people. Baraquel accused Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo and Anakpawis...
Members of the progressive party-list bloc at the House of Representatives walked out of the session hall, December 17, as their colleagues adopted Joint Resolution No. 19. They said they decided not to be a party to the landlord-dominated House of Representatives’ “pretensions, and deception of the Filipino peasantry and the people” in extending the ‘bogus’ Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which was further emasculated with the removal of the compulsory acquisition scheme.
If “pakyao” (piece-rate) system is rampant in most sugar farms, “arendo” or leasehold system is becoming rampant in areas covered by the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). BY KARL G. OMBION Bulatlat If “pakyao” (piece-rate) system is rampant...
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