From separating seeds to selling the harvests, peasant women take part in the whole process of farming. They are food security frontliners with unpaid care work extending from farms to tables, and yet, in the Philippines, they remain to be invisible workers. There is hardly any literature available on the state of the peasant women community in the country and the few existing ones are mostly inaccessible.

Cathy Estavillo, secretary-general of Amihan or the National Federation of Peasant Women, knows why: The government does not recognize women in farming. 

It is against this background that peasant women organizations stand in fortitude, fight and resist the discrimination, harassment, and deprivation of their rights to livelihood and land. It is against this background that they show just who they are and what they are capable of as the female of the species.

Even so the she-bear fights

Drenched in sweat and marked by the sun, Leticia’s long days on the farm usually end with her walking back home. To most of us, this may mean a cold and relaxing bath or a two-hour nap; but a peasant woman leads life differently. She comes home to the fear of not being able to provide food for her family and the added burden of having to teach her five children their school modules. 

The new normal has hit the peasant women community harder than most people. Despite the policy issued by the Department of Agriculture exempting farmers from the lockdown, there are numerous impediments that lead to their loss of livelihood. The community quarantine has blocked their production and distribution processes, with suppliers prohibited from entering the farms, and farmers unable to sell their produce in markets due to the suspension of mass transportation.

According to Amihan, the remaining root crops and relief goods given by non-government organizations only lasted the peasant families for three days after the lockdown. As a result, farmers were forced to acquire loans with interest rates ranging from 10 to15 percent, leaving them in huge debt.

On top of the adverse effects brought by the pandemic, the long-overdue plight of peasant women on the severe wage gap among male and female farmworkers continues to fall on deaf ears. Studies by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in the past two years showed that the average wage gap is at P30, with peasant men and women earning P335 and P304.60 per day, respectively. In the palay sector, the gap is as high as P115 with farmers from Mimaropa earning P422.93 for males and P307.46 for females. 

To a mother like Leticia who makes P200 a day, the salary of a female farmer is far from enough for her family’s needs. In fact, her five high schoolers have to share one working smartphone for modular learning, which means that they have to take turns to access their classes.

Furthermore, the added burden of having to teach her children the lessons worries Leticia as her highest educational attainment is high school. “Nadagdagan ang pagsasakripisyo kasi magtuturo pa [ako] ng bata kahit hindi [ko] alam ang itinuturo dahil hindi [ako] nakapag-aral ng mataas na lebel,” she said. This is a concern that she and tons of other peasant mothers share—due to the incompetence of the government, their children’s education would be limited by their misfortunes.

Between being a mother and a farmer, Leticia’s conviction as a peasant woman does not falter. She, along with the peasant women all over the Philippines, continues to call for a science-based response to the pandemic and sufficient subsidy for all farmers.

Even so the cobra bites

Kamatayan was the name of the guard who led the attack. He was backed by guards equipped with armalites. They were set to storm and fence Hacienda Yulo in August of 2020, when peasant women and elderlies blocked their path, ready to fight for their land. Armalites were pointed to their faces but the indignance of the peasant women was bulletproof.

Farmers and peasant women have long lived in fear of what happens to their lands and livelihood when the government decides to dislodge them. Seven out of 10 farmers in the country do not own the land they till. Despite various reform programs, the majority of these still belong to landlords and multinational corporations. 

However, when the opportunity for land distribution does come, women are often disregarded and the land titles are given to men in the family. Because of this, peasant women are left to work as labor forces in agricultural plants and haciendas where they are subject to low and unfair wages and benefits compared with male workers. 

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of former president Corazon Aquino first acknowledged the role of women in farming by granting land titles to 250 of them. However, this was cut short when the peasant families of Hacienda Doronila-Araneta faced the threat of eviction after the 2014 Supreme Court ruling canceled all the awarded lands issued through CARP.

On top of the land deprivation of peasant families, the government is doing nothing to regulate the prices of their produce. The agricultural liberalization has left the farmers empty-handed as they cannot compete with the rice import from Vietnam and Malaysia. Because of this, the price of palay has drastically dropped from P20 a kilo to P12, putting farmers, especially peasant women, in extreme poverty. 

Even so, like the women of Hacienda Yulo, the peasant community remains undaunted as ever.  Despite the efforts of the government to disenfranchise them, their cries for genuine agrarian reform, equal opportunities among peasant men and women, and the right to own land are loud and clear.

The female of the species is more deadly than the male

Nearing the start of the 2018 barangay elections, the highways from Cordon, Isabela to Tuguegarao were filled with 800 ripped sacks vilifying activists as “terrorists” and “recruiters of NPA”. Among the singled-out names is Cita Managuelod, AMBI Amihan Isabela leader and peasant advocate. She has long been a critic of the government’s self-serving policies; thus, making her a target of efforts to silence activists.

In 2019, the 95th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army placed a P1-million bounty on Managuelod. She was also considered a persona non grata in various barangays of Isabela so as to limit her influence in the region. Managuelod believes that the elaborate efforts to attack her and peasant women organizations aim to create a pretense that they are not accepted by the people that the military claim to fight for.

The Duterte administration, driven by its militaristic and misogynistic principles, has waged a war against its critics and is even more domineering towards the female ones. In the second quarter of 2020, the ripped sacks tactic once again surfaced and attacked the women’s group Amihan and Gabriela, reading, “GABRIELA, AMIHAN, KADAMAY NILOLOKO ANG MGA KABABAIHAN UPANG ABUSUHIN NG NPA”. 

The attempt to discredit peasant activists does not end at red-tagging and vilification. In the distribution of relief goods by local government units during the pandemic, peasant women leaders are made to fill-out forms that aim to profile them as members of mass organizations. As a result of this harassment, most peasant women leaders choose not to claim the aid provided by the taxes of the Filipino people.

Last April, with the hopes of helping the families who did not receive aid, Amihan, along with other peasant groups, organized a relief operation and a bagsakan, a way to sell the products of farmers from Central Luzon to Manila. However, during the operation, their relief goods were confiscated for the sole reason that they brought along with them publicity materials for their organizations. 

With 277 farmers, 36 of whom were women, slain during the Duterte administration, it is no secret that the government is unsparing against the activist peasant community. Nevertheless, when asked about how she feels towards the red-tagging and threats she received, Managuelod’s first thought was not fear for her life. Her immediate answer was that she worries about not reaching as many communities as possible due to the administration’s smear campaign. 

In the face of a government adamant to silence its critics, Managuelod and the rest of the peasant women remain unfazed in their call to stop the killing of farmers and the militarization of LGUs, schools, churches, and communities, and to recognize their democratic right to organize and assemble.

It is clear that peasant women are treated with extreme injustice in the Philippines, what with the persistent discrimination, harassment, and deprivation of rights. However, as Estavillo puts it, “ang kababaihan, kapag na-organisa (at) namulat ay hindi na kimi o tahimik sa harap ng tumitinding kahirapan. Sila ay lalahok at lalaban sa matagal na pang-aapi at pagsasamantalang kanilang dinaranas sa buhay.” 

From separating seeds to selling the harvests, peasant women take part in the whole process of farming, and their responsibilities do not end there. Their role extends from farmlands to households and to the streets, where their fellow women await them to fight for feminism and food sovereignty—all for a just and humane society. ●

*The title of the article and its subheadings are based on Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Female of the Species.

This article was originally published on October 31, 2020.