05/08/2024
WALANG ATRASAN: A SOLIDARITY FUNDRAISER FOR CENTRAL LUZON
This August, Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), Artista ng Rebolusyong Pangkultura (ARPAK), and Artist Alliance for Peasant Rights (AAPR) invite you to WALANG ATRASAN, a two-part solidarity fundraising gig for peasants struggling for land and production subsidies in Hacienda Tinang and Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.
Entrance is strictly pay-as-you-can. For any amount you can contribute, you can watch the following volunteer musicians on these dates:
9 August 2024, 6pm onwards
Paper Lantern, Matalino St., Diliman, Quezon City
CHOKE COCOI
MARA PERALTA
O.I. RESEARCH PARTNERS
FIGURE OUT
KAPITAN KULAM
STAFFBOX
TARSIUS
11 August 2024, 6pm onwards
Mow’s, Matalino St., Diliman, Quezon City
THIRDS
IRREVOCABLE
THE GEEKS
BIRD DENS
AUNT ROBERT
And more!
Between sets, mass leaders from different peasant organizations will address the audience to talk about the social, economic, and political conditions faced by farmers and agri-workers in the region, along with the measures these organizations have been taking to advance not only their interests but the rest of the country’s food sovereignty.
Representatives from ally organizations will also express their solidarity and share what projects they have in the pipeline in support of genuine agrarian reform and other related efforts in connection with the national democratic agenda to empower grassroots communities — mainly peasants and workers — who make up the oppressed majority.
The peasantry still makes up 70% of the country’s population, yet seven to nine out of 10 of them remain landless. Some of the worst conditions for farmers and agri-workers can be found in Central Luzon where much of the Philippines’ so-called ‘hacienda belt’ can be found, including Hacienda Tinang and Hacienda Luisita.
All proceeds will go to peasant organizations — foremost among them Malayang Kilusang Samahang Magsasaka ng Tinang (MAKISAMA-Tinang) and Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) — active in local struggles for genuine agrarian reform in Central Luzon. Part of this is the struggle to grow food staples on and demilitarize their land.
MAKE NOISE FOR TINANG!
As early as 1988, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) had earmarked Hacienda Tinang’s 200-hectare friar land for distribution among 236 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in Concepcion under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). But in 1995, local bureaucrats withheld the collective Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) from the ARBs.
It was only in 2016 that ARBs came to know of their right to the estate they had been tilling. And when member-beneficiaries of MAKISAMA-Tinang, joined by peasant advocates from the ranks of artists and journalists, asserted this right through bungkalan — a collective occupy-and-cultivate protest action — in 2022, they were met with state violence.
The biggest mass arrest since martial law, that of the Tinang 83, catapulted the issue to national attention and set Ferdinand Marcos Jr. off to a rocky start in Malacañang. Sustained struggle in defense of their legitimate claim to the estate amid militarization and harassment finally resulted in the installation of 90 MAKISAMA-Tinang ARBs on a 62.4-hectare allotment.
And yet the struggle continues. DAR has yet to facilitate the dismissal of three to five charges fabricated by Concepcion police against the Tinang 83, and the lack of production subsidies from government and its disaster unpreparedness in facing Typhoon Carina have aggravated the difficulties faced by MAKISAMA-Tinang to make their land productive.
ROCK ON FOR LUISITA!
Hacienda Luisita has long been one of the country’s most controversial estates, a 6,453-hectare icon of semi-feudalism the size of Makati and Manila combined. What used to be a 12,000-hectare estate granted by the Spanish colonial crown to Tabacalera in 1882 would be purchased by Jose Cojuangco Sr. from the Magsaysay regime.
Generations of fake agrarian reform programs — among them, CARP begun by President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, scion of the Cojuangco patriarch and wife of the hacienda’s first administrator, Ninoy Aquino, and Presidential Decree 27, rolled out
under the Cojuangco-Aquinos’ political rival, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos — have failed to dismantle it.
It would be the site of sham distribution schemes like the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) and agri-business venture arrangements, as well as a massacre that killed seven peasants and injured hundreds more when state security forces opened fire on over 5,000 agricultural workers and their sympathizers when they launched an historic strike.
The Supreme Court’s decision to distribute 4,915.75 hectares to 6,296 beneficiaries had been a major win, but gains made by the peasant movement in the area have slowly been reversed by the state in cahoots with landlords and compradors with stakes in the estate. AMBALA continues to be redtagged by state security forces encamped within the hacienda.
These days, the Lorenzo and Ayala landlord-comprador clans have joined their fellow landgrabbers the Cojuangco-Aquinos in lording it over Luisita peasants. Amid increasing difficulty, they carry on the tasks of strengthening their ranks, asserting their right to association and assembly, and waging the struggle for land and living wages.
ADVANCE THE PEASANT STRUGGLE, NO TURNING BACK!
Despite state tyranny under the US-Marcos Jr. regime, the peasants of MAKISAMA-Tinang and AMBALA dare say: No turning back, walang atrasan!
UMA, ARPAK, AAPR, and the rest of the peasant movement stand behind them in advancing the peasant struggle for genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and national industrialization.
When farmers and agri-workers advance their welfare, they also end up advancing ours. They deserve our support, and we ask you to join us. MAKIBAKA, WAG MATAKOT!
[Special thanks to volunteer artist B**g Redila for the poster.]
