SUMILAO FARMERS MANIFESTO
17 January 2008
Manila

Last December 17, 2007, exactly one month ago today, we sat face to face with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, her Department of agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, our Governor Jose Zubiri, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye and several other high ranking official of our government. Exactly one month ago today, our government, in front of our leaders of the Church made a solemn promise – they will return us the land we continue to claim, the land that was once ours, the land that is rightly ours. One month ago today, they said they will begin by revoking the conversion order that denied us our land 10 years ago and that it was the first step to returning the land to us.

The following day, Sec. Ignacio Bunye delivered to us the Order from the Office of the President, signed by Executive Sec. Eduardo Ermita declaring the conversion order that took our lands from us was revoked. The order said that Quisumbing, the former owner and San Miguel Foods, Inc., the present owner violated the conversion order so it was revoked. The Order was supposed to give us hope, it was supposed to make us clap, dance and jump at our “victory.” The order made us worry and wary.

The order reminded us of another order issued by another President in October 1997 that was supposed to grant us 100 hectares of the 144 that was titled to us. They called that order a “win-win” resolution, we stopped our hunger strike and broke bread with the President. Two years after we were told we lost. We lost everything.

Despite our doubts and reservations, we gave this government, this President, the space to fulfill her promise. On December 21, 2007, we declared our 1,700-kilometer walk over and that we are going home. The land was declared agricultural once again, no hog farm can be built on our land legally. We had the word of the highest and the most powerful government official of the land – the President. We had the support of the Church – the Cardinal, the bishops, the religious and even the ordinary parishioners. We had the support of the public who were incensed at the injustice that was committed against us. On December 23, 2007, we went home to our families, we went home doubtful yet hopeful.

The DAR and the office of the President told us to wait for fifteen days. We patiently waited. By our counting, the fifteen days ended last January 2, 2008. We went to the regional office of the DAR last January 3, we were told to wait. And we waited and we never left the DAR regional office, we waited tight outside their gates.

The government asked us to wait even though SMFI boldly announced to the public that it was business as usual, they are not stopping their construction and their hog farm will be operational by January 2008. They told us to wait and the government did not raise even a whimper at such a brazen affront at the Order of the President.

In its paid advertisement, SMFI enumerated the economic benefits that it will bring to the people of Sumilao. It said that the 144-hectares is not raw land but a developed complex that ready to go operational. It boasted of the millions it will pay in taxes, the thousands of workers that it will employ and the millions that it pay in terms of wages.

To these we ask: Is it right and just for them to illegally convert the land because of their promised economic benefits? Didn’t the Quisumbings say the same empty promises when they applied for conversion? Does the 2.9B pesos they claim to have invested to make their illegal operations justifiable? What about the constitutionally mandated social justice? Do we abandon social justice in exchange for promises of economic benefits? If so, what is the price of justice for the marginalized, the poor and vulnerable like us?

SMFI also questioned the legality of our being qualified beneficiaries to the land citing the fact that we were never tenants to the land and that some of us are beneficiaries to the 66-hectare Carlos Estate and are therefore no longer qualified to become beneficiaries.

Don’t their lawyers know their law? Don’t they know that under the Comprehensive agrarian reform law landless farmers need not to be tenants to become beneficiaries? Indeed, there are some of us who are beneficiaries of the Carlos Estate. We never hid that fact. But does their receiving between 0.2 and 0.9 make them no longer landless? Don’t they know that the law defines a family size farm enough to sustain a family is 3 hectares? Of course they know all these, they just want to cast doubt about the legality of our claim and their accusations do not hold any water.

Yet despite these, the government told us to wait patiently while the 15 days extended from January 2 to January 17 just because Secretary Bunye reneged on his promise to personally deliver the Order of the Office of the President to SMFI the very day it was issued. He did not even bother to explain why it took them two weeks to deliver. They made us wait while they took their time studying our petition for the issuance of a cease and desist order, yet the studying never ends. Until today they are still studying. Or are they?

While we waited, and the government was busy with their study of the cease and desist order, SMFI continued building its hog farm, depriving us more and more of our land every day. Yet the government waited.

The waiting ends today. We have waited for a month. The government did nothing for a month. How many hectares did we lose after a month? How much more do we wait. Today we stop waiting. Today, we begin our walk a new.

The last time we walked from our homes to the halls of the power in Malacañang to knock at he hearts and conscience of the powerful. It appears they will not use even an ounce of their power to make good of their promise of returning us to our land. Today, we begin walking the opposite direction. We will walk to the homes of the people beginning with the young in their schools, then to the faithful in their Churches. We will knock at the hearts and conscience of the ordinary people as we continue to knock those of the powerful. We will walk on and on until our steps will lead us back to our homes to till the land that is rightly and justly ours.

We will walk with our faith intact. We will continue to walk the way of peace with the Church, its leaders, clergy and the faithful beside us. we continue to walk to soften the hearts of the rich and powerful, we will walk to strengthen the will of the just and the faithful.

Today we begin the Walk for Land, and Walk for Justice again. We will not stop until our land is returned to us. We will continue walking until justice is ours.

SUMILAO FARMERS