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By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor
August 21 has passed and much has been said to commemorate the
death of Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983. His sacrifice led to
the presidency of his widow, President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, and
the end of Ferdinand Marcos’ 20-year dictatorship.
But there are other martyrdoms arguably more
poignant during this current food crisis.
It was on June 22, 1987 during Aquino’s
administration that 13 farmers were murdered in front of the
presidential palace in what would be known as the Mendiola Massacre.
Their sacrifice led to the creation of the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program (CARP). This law challenges the continued existence
of the haciendas that have sustained and necessitated traditional
political dynasties such as those of the Aquinos and the Cojuangcos.
This year—20 years after it was enacted on
June 15, 1988—CARP is set to expire unless extended by
Congress—an institution that has always been comprised and
compromised by the hacienda-owning political dynasties that CARP
dares threaten.
One man has witnessed the struggle for social
equity for over four decades—peasant leader and agrarian reform
icon Jaime Tadeo. He reveals the long and bloody road that has led
this far and the hard path than now faces the nation. He embodies
the struggle. He is the land made flesh.
Roots of the struggle
“Agrarian reform has been my life. I’ve
spent 44 years struggling for this cause,” attests peasant leader
and agrarian reform icon Jaime Tadeo.
When in of August 8, 1963, Congress passed the
Republic Act 3844 or the Agricultural Land Reform Code—the
country’s first land reform bill—Tadeo had already seeded
himself with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture from
Araneta University. When President Diosdado Macapagal declared
Plaridel, Bulacan as the first land reform area on June 20, 1964,
Tadeo planted himself there. He recalls, “I was there as a
technician—a pioneer implementing Agricultural Land Reform Code.
Thus began my life’s work for agrarian reform.”
“I do not come from a family of farmers. But
my wife inherited a little land and I’ve been toiling it since
1969 when we were married in Plaridel,” he explains.
Tadeo is ever the breathless talker in lyrical
Tagalog. He mentions dates, figures and statistically without
skipping a beat. The man knows his numbers. But the revelation today
is his fervent religiosity. His white beard and silver mane are the
mantle of a man who has been the voice crying in the wilderness for
decades. His talk today is nothing less than epiphanic.
Promised Land
“Perhaps names have their meaning. ‘Jaime’
in both Spanish and Filipino means ‘farmer,’” he contends.
Jaime in Spanish, James in English, Iacobus in Latin or Jacob in
Hebrew, literally means “supplanter.” Jacob bought his twin
brother Esau’s birthright for a bowl of lentil soup, thus
supplanting him. ‘Tadeo’ and ‘Christ’ are the same. The mean
anointed—touched by the Holy Spirit,” he adds. Tadeo in Spanish,
Theodore in English or Thaddeus in Greek, comes from the Armaic
“Taddai” meaning “bosom buddy.” In the Bible the apostle
Thaddeus is also known as Jude, “brother of Jesus.”
For Roman Catholics, Thaddeus is the patron
saint of desperate cases and lost causes. Tadeo proclaims, “I on
the other hand am the blessed farmer”
“The meaning of agrarian reform is social
justice. And the mother of social justice is the Virgin Mary. If you
look at my shrine, it reads ‘Mother of Agrarian Reform,’ he
notes, adding, “I’ve been religious since I was a child. I
served as a sacristan and because of this had studied for free at
Saint Paul’s College.”
Today, Tadeo reminds us of a biblical figure,
pre-Christian and pre-colonial, before Conquistadors stole our
forefathers’ lands at musket point and parceled it among
collaborators and cronies as sprawling haciendas. He evokes an age
before land ownership came to be—a concept alien and antithetical
to our communal ancestors. But one doesn’t have to looks so far to
see the roots of today’s agrarian reform.
Sowing blood, reaping justice
“Let’s accept that the reason there is a
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program is because of the Mendiola
Massacre. Perhaps that’s the way it is, just like Christ whose
death brought eternal life. Because of these 13 lives offered as
sacrifice, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform came to be. Popoy [Philip]
Juico, Agrarian Reform secretary during the time of President Aquino,
told me, “Ka [Comrade] Jimmy, we owe a dept of gratitude to the
Mendiola Massacre, without which there would be no Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program,” he says.
On June 22, 1987, peasant organization Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas—then led by Tadeo—decided to march to
the Malacanang Presidential Palace to press President Aquino for
true agrarian reforms. On Mendiola Bridge, anti-riot personnel from
the Western Police District, the Integrated National Police and the
Philippine Marines met the farmers. Shots were fired resulting in 13
deaths and 80 injuries among the farmers.
The Citizens’ Mendiola Commission, created by
president Aquino’s Administrative Order No. 11 and headed by
Supreme Court Justice Pedro Abad Santos, found documentary
photographic evidence of four uniformed men shooting at protesters.
The photos however did not reveal the identities of the
perpetrators.
Among the defendants named by a P6.5-million
class lawsuit were former President (then-Chief of Staff) Fidel
Ramos and Manila City Mayor (then-WPD Superintendent) Alfredo Lim as
well Renato de Villa and Rodolfo Biazon. Citing the government’s
immunity from suit, Judge Edilberto Sandoval of Branch 9 of the
Manila Regional Trial Court dismissed the case on May 31, 1988, a
ruling upheld by the Supreme Court during August 8, 1988—also
during the Aquino administration.
Though the backlash unleashed by the Mendiola
Massacre had the Aquino administration initially conceding to
farmers’ demands, ways and means would later be found to suppress
Tadeo.
In 1990, agents of the National Bureau of
Investigation arrested Tadeo. Initially detaining him on charges of
subversion, the authorities later revived a case of estafa
(swindling) leveled against Tadeo by the National Grains Authority
in 1982 during the Marcos administration and previously dismissed by
the Bulacan Regional Trial Court in 1985 for lack of evidence.
Convicted, Tadeo was recommended to serve the maximum jail term of
18 years by then-Justice Secretary Franklin Drilon—also during the
Aquino administration.
“Kakahingi ng lupa, binigyan ako ng ‘lupa.’
Dinala ako sa Muntinlupa. Tatlong buwan at tatlong taon akong
kinulong,” jokes Tadeo
“After that, Erap [deposed President Joseph
Estrada] visited me in Muntinlupa. After hewon the election he made
me a director of Land Bank.” President Macapagal Arroyo, the
daughter of President Macapagal who had implemented the seminal
Agricultural Land Reform Code that mandated the creation of Land
Bank, then removed Tadeo from his position when she came to power in
2001.
Nonetheless, Tadeo has weathered changing
political fortunes and remains rooted to his cause. Today, he
continues to serve as a member of the Presidential Agrarian Reform
Council representing farmers from Luzon at the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR). Despite being the first to cite all its many
failings, he remains a true believer in CARP. For him the martyrdom
of 13 peasants cannot be in vain.
Tadeo explains how CARP went further than
previous laws: “Republic Act 3844 stipulated the division of
agricultural estates. With Marcos, there was Presidential Decree 27
[Tenant Emancipation Act of October 21, 1972]. Its coverage was only
for rice and cornfields—a total of 1.5 million hectares. Because
of the Mendiola Massacre agrarian reform was extended to all
crops.”
Food crisis
Tadeo explains the current food crisis stems
from the failure of thoroughly implementing land reform and the
persistence of haciendas.
“It all started with the galleon trade. The
Spanish came here for our sugar and coconut oil as well as abaca and
tobacco. They took raw materials from us. In return they dumped
their finished products here. This was a colonial trade where the
Philippines was just a consumerist but not an industrial producer.
That is the the chief cause of our hardships.”
“We know that even before the Spanish and
Americans came, we were a rice growing culture. We didn’t import
rice then. What we heard in the president’s SONA [State of the
Nation Address] was a bit incorrect.
In her SONA on July 28, the President said:
“But let’s not be too hard on ourselves. Panahon pa ng Kastila
bumibili na tayo ng bigas sa labas. [Even during Spanish times we
imported rice.] While we may know how to grow rice well, topography
doesn’t always cooperate. Nature did not gift us with a mighty
Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally
fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our
neighbors in the path of typhoons from the Pacific. So, we import 10
percent of the rice we consume.”
But according to a study by Benito Legarda
entitled After the Galleons: Foreign Trade, Economic Change and
Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Philippines, the
country’s dependence on rice importation since the 1870s onward
was caused by the hacienderos’ shifted from rice to cash crops for
export such as tobacco, abaca and sugar.
This trend continues to today as hacienderos
transform agricultural land for industrial, commercial and
residential development maintain profit and avoid complying with the
CARP.
Tadeo asserts, “The Philippines is a tropical
country. The soil is rich.”
He notes, “According to the data from the
1970s and 1980s when we were exporting rice, our rain-fed
agricultural lands totaled 2,000,481 hectares and irrigated lands
totaled 1,006,000 hectares. Of this irrigated land, only 868,509
hectares now remain. Among rain-fed agricultural lands, only
1,00,356 hectares now remain. The population is increasing. There
are now some 90 million Filipino’s while the land for crops is
decreasing.
Land for agriculture is a finite resource while
the people on it continue to multiply. Recent government policies on
family planning—those dictated by the Catholic Church and other
conservative interests that are based so-called natural birth
control—are clearly failures.
“Add to this the long years of neglect in
Philippine agriculture. Economists say, “It’s simple Ka Jimmy.
If you don’t invest in agriculture, production will decrease. With
smaller production, farmers have less profit.”
The lack of government support for small scale
farming—whether due to corruption (one of the most recent examples
of which was the fertilizer scam of 2006) or the reactionary
dismantling of all things attributed to previous administrations (as
when the Marcos dictatorship’s successful Masagana 99 rice
self-sufficiency program that led to the country exporting surplus
rice from 1978 to 1981 was abandoned by the subsequent Aquino
regime)—in providing technological, technical and financial
assistance has lead to inefficiency.
“In truth, we have a shortage of 4 to 5
million metric tons of rice a year. We consume 1 million metric tons
a month or 12 million metric tons a year. We also use than 400,000
metric tons to make noodles, 621,000 metric tons for animal feed and
200,000 to grow as seedling—that’s more or less an additional
1.3 million to our 12 million metric ton consumption,” Tadeo
notes.
He contends, “This is all the product of
prioritization of rice importation over local production. In 2003,
only P1.7 billion was invested in local rice production and yet P5
to P8 billion was spent on rice importation. Today we spend about
P43 billion importation.”
“The failure of government to invest in local
production as well as the increase in population and the rampant
land conversion are the cause of our food crisis,” he declares.
Tadeo explains that agrarian reform is integral
to food security as well as economic development: “What is the
value of agrarian reform? It is the key to sustainable growth and
development. Farmers comprise the largest sector of Philippine
society. The goal of agrarian reform is to deepen and enrich the
pockets of peasantry. If you give him the land, the means and the
support necessary to be productive and prosperous, you create a
strong domestic market. Consumer spending is the engine of the
economy. If farmers are prosperous they spend more. If they spend
more, all businesses will benefit. If businesses grow then salaries
will also increase. This is what Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan have
all done.”
However, furthering business interests
indirectly by boosting farmers’ profits and workers’ wages
entails nationalism, foresight and collectivism—values that
hacienderos and traditional politicians have historically scoffed at
and shunned.
Gentrified land grabbers
Historically, political dynasties have
maintained their power through patronage and personality politics.
Even those hailed as democrats come from these entrenched interests.
For example, President Aquino comes from the Cojuangco clan, one of
the most entrenched haciendero and political dynasties in the
country. Her late husband Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. himself also came
from a clan of traditional politicians and hacienderos. After the
People Power revolt of 1986, she did not to take advantage of the
historic revolutionary mandate of her administration and instead
reinstituted the traditional politics and oligarchy that had existed
prior to the Marcos dictatorship. Today, former Sen. Teresita
Aquino-Oreta, sister of Benigno Aquino Jr., is openly against
agrarian reform.
On November 16, 2004, history tragically
repeated itself when farmers demanding land reform at the
Cojuangco’s 6,453-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac were
violently dispersed, leading to 14 deaths.
Nonetheless, Tadeo still sees hope. After all
it, was during the Aquino regime that CARP became law, albeit at the
cost of so many lives.
The new deal
Tadeo enumerates the problems and the
corresponding reforms necessary to strengthen CARP:
1. “The biggest weakness of the program is
that its budget comes from the General Appropriations Act. In a
landlord-dominated congress, of course they wont give any funds to
it, “he cites.
“The worst enemy [of CARP] then was Sen. John
Osmena. He would always seek a position in the Finance Committee.
The sad thing is that today [Sen. Juan Ponce] Enrile now holds the
Finance Committee. He’s yet another landlord,” attests Tadeo.
He explains their alleged tactics, “If DAR was
asking for P3 billion for land acquisition and distribution, Osmena
would shave of P1billion then another P1 billion until there were
hardly any funds left.”
“The landlords know that even if the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program has some strong pro-farmer
provisions, it can still be killed by starving it of budget.”
He proposes the solution: “There needs to be
automatic appropriations from the budget—like they do for foreign
debt service—worth 3.8 percent.”
2. “Another weakness is the lack of credit
assistance. With the Republic Act 3844, there was agricultural
administration for lending,” notes Tadeo.
“Farming is a business. You need capital to be
productive, efficient and competitive,” he declares, adding,
“Look at Japan and Europe, their financial assistance is worth
$323 billion a year. Look how competitive they are.”
“We need support services, public sector
investment, credit assistance, irrigation development, improve
farm-to-market roads, provide dryers, and provide marketing
expertise.”
3. Tadeo notes, “The CLOAs [certificates of
land ownership awards] and EPs [emancipation patents] are too easily
canceled. They ought to be like TCTs [transfer certificate title]
and OCTs [original certificate of transfer that cannot be
canceled.”
4. “The DAR Adjudication Board needs to be
overhauled. Recently, farmers have lost many cases. We need to
provide quality lawyers. We are coming up against high-powered
corporate attorneys,” he implores.
5. “DAR itself needs to be overhauled.
Currently, it is bloated and inefficient. Instead of being
pro-peasant, it is staffed by pro-landlord personnel,” he
declares.
6. “Ban all land conversions. We need to
guarantee the food security of a growing population,” Tadeo
demands.
“The largest loophole in the is DOJ
[Department of Justice] Opinion No. 44 issued during the tenure of
Justice Secretary Drilon in 1990. It states that if agricultural
land was converted to residential, commercial or industrial before
June 15, 1988, it cannot be covered by CARP. This is the reason for
rampant land conversions that compounds the rice crisis,” he
explains.
7. “Ban stock distribution options such as
those in Hacienda Luisita. In that case, the farmers only got
one-third while the Cojuangcos retained two-third majority. Farmers
should own their own land,” he implores.
8. “Never exclude farmers from negotiations
between DAR and landlords. This weakens their legal standing,”
Tadeo advocates.
Landmines and deadlines
This year, the continued existence of CARP is
under threat. CARP was enacted on June 10, 1988, originally with a
lifespan of 10 years. In 1998, the legislature extended its funding
for another 10 years. On June 10, 2008, Congress deferred to vote on
the CARP extension bill and instead extended the land acquisition
and distribution component of DAR—“The heart and soul of the
program,” according to Tadeo—only until December.
Akbayan party-list Representative Risa
Hontiveros-Baraquel, a principal author of CARP extension bill,
alleged that landlords in congress as well as leftists from the
“reaffirmist” camp [Akbayan is “revisionist”] who are
espousing their own alternative known as Genuine Agrarian Reform
Bill had torpedoed CARP’s extension.
With 97 representatives voting in favor, 82
against and 53 absent, CARP failed to muster the necessary
overwhelming majority. For his part, Senate Minority Floor Leader
Aquilino Pimentel Jr. demanded that Land Reform Secretary Nasser
Pangandaman account for CARP funds during his term.
Nearly a year before, on June 13, 2007,
President Arroyo had certified the CARP extension bill as urgent.
“According to Gloria [Macapagal Arroyo], this
was the most cherished law of her father, known as ‘The Poor Boy
from Lubao.’ What is saddening is that agrarian reform may under
his daughter’s presidency,” says Tadeo.
Tadeo reveals, “What hurts is, her
brother-in-law Iggy [Rep. Ignacio Arroyo, 5th district of Negros
Occidental] voted ‘No.’ Her two sons, Dato [Rep. Diosdado
Arroyo, 1st district of Camarines Sur’s] and Mickey [Rep. Juan
Miguel Arroyo, 2nd district of Pampanga] also voted ‘No.’”
“Though she stated in her SONA that CARP
extension with reform [was among her objectives], how can we be sure
of her intentions? It would be a tragedy if CARP was not
extended,” he says.
Despite the recent failure for a clear majority
vote ion favor of CARP’s extension and reform, he persists.
Tadeo announces: “We have a local initiative.
Under article 6, section 32 of our Constitution, there is the
Peoples Initiative. Citizens have the right to propose and enact
legislature that cannot be vetoed by Congress or the President. But
it’s very hard to accomplish. You need to garner the support at
least 3 percent for every legislative district. We have 236
legislative districts. You also need to garner 10 percent of
eligible voters nationwide or P4.6 million. We need to muster at
least P6 million to have safe margin. If we can do this in a
year’s time then all’s well. But we estimate it will take
probably 20 months.”
“If the landlord-dominated congress refuses to
pass the CARP extension with reform, the citizens themselves
should,” he proclaims.
Tadeo recognizes that Filipinos suffer from
People Power fatigue, after several peaceful revolts have deposed
Presidents such as Marcos and Estrada only to have those who
replaced them perpetuate traditional politics. He see’s the
People’s Initiative as a way to stoke the citizenry once again.
“This is our way of deepening and widening the
awareness of the masses,” he believes.
Men have parted seas and smote whole armies
harnessing the same fiery conviction. All Jaime Tadeo asks is that
justice be rendered upon this land. Agrarian reform is his plea. And
n
othing less than the fervent supplication and
righteous anger of an entire nation will do. It is time to say our
prayers with signatures, votes and clenched fists. Farmers deserve
nothing less than their promised land.
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