đź“·Filipino farmers | PIAÂ
The Marcos Jr. administration is not giving Filipino farmers a fair shake, given its import-based food security, turtle-paced land acquisition and distribution (LAD) for tenants under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), and failure to check widespread land grabbing and land conversion in Central Luzon, the country’s rice granary.
Curiously, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has been working hand-in-glove with big landlords in frustrating the decades-old demand of Batangas farmers to break up several sugar haciendas under the Roxases, with the DAR making an about-face about the awards to landless peasants and giving the landlords the best land, with half of the least arable sections divided among the CARP beneficiaries. In Palawan, the 40,000-hectare Yulo King Ranch is still controlled by landlords. At the same time, Bugsuk Island, long cultivated by indigenous people (IP), became unsuitable for farming in an instant and was thus awarded to Ramon Ang, purportedly to host an eco-tourism site not far from Jewelmer pearl farms.
Worse, the Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC) has been selling the idea that government-owned lands (GOLs) would be made available for foreign capitalists venturing into agribusiness plantations, solar farms or telecommunications. Supposedly the country’s sovereign wealth fund (SWF), MIC has been luring foreign investors into the boondocks even when Marcos Jr. himself vowed to distribute idle GOLs among farmers, including unused military reservations and parcels of the campuses of state colleges and universities (SCUs) that could be repurposed for food production. Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairperson Danilo Ramos argued that the current land-use conversion policies implemented by the government favor big businesses and foreign corporations at the expense of Filipino farmers and indigenous communities.
“The ruling elite uses land-use conversion and reclassification as tools to displace farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) from their land. The government is facilitating large-scale land grabbing through policies that favor foreign and corporate interests,” Ramos said. As a longtime farmer-leader, Ramos had been pushing for the free distribution of land to landless tenants and the provision of farm inputs, irrigation services and improved farmgate prices for crops, livestock and vegetables to encourage farmers to produce more. Instead, Ramos rued, the government has refused to grant subsidies while Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan have been pampering their rice farmers. The import-based food security policy of the administration has been practically pushing farmers to bankruptcy, to the extent that many of them, especially in Central Luzon, have contemplated suicide. Elaborating on this, Ramos said, the Department of Agriculture (DA) has been approving uncontrolled importations right during the harvest season! The excuse? Chronic shortages. Yet, even these chronic shortages cannot explain why meat importations zoom by 50% yearly, with the volume of imports exceeding the per capita consumption and ending up with meat processors.
Swine flu and bird flu are the usual culprits but the imports do not land in wet markets but in the warehouses of meat processors. Notice how many of these meat processors, particularly those who import mechanically deboned meat (MDM) are very close to the seat of power. Even fish importations benefit canners, not the consumers, while vegetable importers profit mostly when their cargoes arrive in time for the harvest of onions, garlic, tomatoes and others. Ramos, the Makabayan senatorial candidate who’s taking the cudgels for farmers, cited the Enhanced Land Sector Development Framework (2019–2040) as a key instrument that facilitates land-use conversion. Under this framework, the government has streamlined the process for converting agricultural lands into industrial, commercial, and residential zones — often bypassing proper consultation with the affected communities.
KMP secretary-general Ronnie Manalo emphasized that affected farmers and rural communities are rarely consulted about these conversions. “Farmers are always threatened with ejectment and eviction from their land. The push for infrastructure, real estate, ecozones, and tourism projects is causing massive livelihood losses for farmers. This is exactly what is happening in Central Luzon — the so-called ‘Rice Granary of the Philippines’, now being transformed into expressways, airports, malls, industrial parks, warehouses, subdivisions, recreation areas under the Central Luzon Development Plan or CLDP,” Manalo stated. The transformation of Central Luzon was accelerated by the Duterte administration’s Build, Build, Build program (2017–2022), which Marcos Jr. continued under the Build Better More program (2023–2028.)
This infra boom is leading to the displacement of farmers, fisherfolk, and indigenous people who rely on the land for their survival. Manalo said major infrastructure and industrial projects in Central Luzon are key drivers of land grabbing and displacement, These projects include the Pampanga Megalopolis, Bulacan Aerotropolis, massive solar farms in Tarlac, the Freeport of Bataan Expansion, and various projects targeting Agrarian Reform Beneficiary (ARB) lands in Hacienda Luisita. He highlighted that Aboitiz Infracapital, Inc. is set to develop a 200-hectare economic estate in Tarlac City, with plans to convert an additional 500 hectares of Hacienda Luisita into a special economic zone under the guise of a “green energy” initiative.
In Sitio Balubad, Angeles City, 2,000 residents were forcibly evicted from a 73-hectare property in March 2024. Reports indicate that a combined team of police and hired security forces carried out violent demolitions that left scores injured. Meanwhile, in Barangay Taltal, Masinloc, Zambales, farmers and fisherfolk face eviction despite years of cultivating the land. KMP also noted the ongoing struggle in Hacienda Tinang, where farmers fought for decades to reclaim land granted under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Despite securing a legal victory, agrarian reform beneficiaries have yet to receive their land certificates and are now facing pressure to convert their lands into solar farms.
