Published in the Mabuhay, Sunday Examiner
September 03, 2006

Shadow of death stalks land reform but proponents remain confident of success

QUEZON CITY (Mabuhay): “We know out lives are in danger,” the quietly articulate Jose Noel Olano, executive director of the Philippine Agrarian Reform Foundatino for Natinal Development (PARFUND), told Mabuhay as he sat calmly, yet defiantly, next his colleague, the national coordinator of Task Force Mapalad (TFM-National Federation of Farmers, Farm Workers and Advocates), Armando Jarilla.

The two related how, to date, nine of their friends and colleagues have been murdered since Gloria Arroyo took office as the Philippine president in January 2001. “We both know we are on the hit list,” Jarilla stated matter-of-factly. “We have been told and friends in the police have also warned us” that we are slated to be added to the agrarian reformers’ graveyard, along with those who have incurred the wrath of land owners or other officials of vested interest.

Both Olano and Jarilla have been working to organize farmers to claim their right to land according to the 1986 cetrepiece Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP) legislation of the Cory Aquino administration. “We educate people on what the law says, conduct dialogue between peasant farmers, land owners and personnel from government agencies,” they explained.

The two community organisers said that the violence surrounding the land claim issues escalated suddenly when Arroyo came to power, as that was about the time the concentration of claims shifted from government land to privately owned. Olano said that the land lords “will do anything to stop that. They will use the courts, file spurious and trumped-up charges, harass and terrify farmers, hire goons to go into their homes and interrogate them, have them terminated (murdered), even if they have just put their name on a land claim, and cut off any means of livelihood they may have.”

Jarilla added that the government does not have the political will to enforce its own legislation, “And this is from the top down,” he said “beginning with the president.” He pointed out that some government-appointed officials actually work to block the successful administration of their own offices. 

Community organizers murdered in agrarian-related violence:

• Wilfredo Cornea (49), farmer, land recipient, shot, 26, June 2006
• Mario Domingo (35), farmer, land recipient, shot, 17 May 2006
• Rico Adeva (39), community organizer, shot, 15 April 2006
• Delia De Castro (52), farmer, shot, 13 May 2006
• Winifredo Matahum (31), land recipient, shot, 15 January 2005
• Agustin Flores (42), land recipient, shot, 1 November 2004
• Teresa Mameng (60), farmer, land recipient, shot, 3 September 2004
• Indak Espartero (40), land recipient, shot, 3 May 2003
• Ronilo Vasquez (25), land recipient, shot, February 2001