The past five years has brought nothing but misery and terror for farmers, peasant groups said.
Like most of his campaign platforms, President Rodrigo Duterte’s promises to the peasant sector went unfulfilled. Nine out of 10 farmers remain without land. Hunger rates have reached untenable levels, felt sharply by the very same people at the forefronts of food production. Disappointed does not even begin to capture their sentiments, said the farmers.
“In complete shambles” was how the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) described the agricultural sector under the present administration. Unbridled land grabbing, criminal state neglect, and disastrous economic policies have characterized the past five years, completely shattering the farmers’ hope for genuine agrarian reform and a productive agriculture industry.
As rural poverty climbs and job prospects in the agriculture sector dry up, the move towards food security and self-sufficiency has all but stopped. In a complete turnaround, the Duterte government has instead opted to rely on imports, spelling doom for the country’s already embattled agriculture sector.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) minced no words and squarely placed the blame on the Duterte administration’s complete subservience to powerful landlords and corporations for the crisis in agriculture.
“Hindi lang ang pandemya ang nagpalala sa kagutuman at kahirapan ng magbubukid at masang anakpawis – ang rehimen ni Rodrigo Duterte mismo ang pinakamalalang sakit at pinakamatinding sakuna na tumama sa bansa,” KMP said in a statement.
In stark contrast to Duterte’s promise to break up the vast estates of the few landholding families, the haciendas remained. In fact, the lands owned by people known to be close to the president grew substantially. Ramon Ang, a prominent Duterte ally, saw a 118 percent increase in land ownership, from 17,123 hectares in 2016 to a staggering 37,307 hectares by late 2020.
The Villar family also saw a marked increase in their landholdings. Vista Land, their real estate development corporation, now has a 61 percent control over the country’s house lot market—despite the glaring conflict of interest. Mark Villar currently heads the Department of Public Works and Highways while his mother, Cynthia Villlar, chairs the two Senate committees that oversee the country’s food, agriculture, and natural resources.
“In favor of corporate landgrabbers, the Duterte regime has targeted the expansion of plantations by some 1.6 million hectares more,” UMA said. “And in these plantations, agricultural workers put up with the lowest imaginable wages and worst labor conditions.”
Latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority pegged the average daily wage for agricultural workers to be a little over P300 daily. But UMA has documented instances of hacienda workers still receiving unbelievably low salaries—with one farmer reporting a daily wage of nine pesos.
UMA also pointed out that in sugar plantations, peasants still must do backbreaking labor for up to 16 hours a day—only to receive P170 for their hard work. “Rarely do the wages of agricultural workers meet regional wage standards, even as such standards remain way below the rates for living wages,” it added.
These dire and persistent issues faced by the country’s agricultural sector have adversely impacted the nation’s food security, which was further exacerbated by the pandemic. At the height of the health crisis, six out of every 10 households experienced food insecurity. As the most impoverished sector with a poverty incidence of 31.6 percent, it is the farmers who are, ironically, among the most stricken by hunger.
Most insidious of all has been the systematic attacks by state forces against peasant organizations and the farmers themselves. Since 2016, KMP has documented 333 peasants murdered, with 25 cases of blatant massacres.
“The Duterte regime suppresses the peasant movement in order to grab land for corporations to convert into plantations, then suppresses the labor movement to conceal the slave-like conditions in these plantations and prevent workers from asserting their rights,” UMA said.
As the nation grapples with extraordinary hunger and suffering, the agriculture sector could have provided much-needed relief to the Filipino people with the right support from the state. But the Duterte administration, which appears to have completely reneged on all its promises, seems hellbent on prioritizing the interests of powerful businesses and allies over that of farmers. ●
