ELEVEN years after the Hacienda Luisita massacre, the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas demanded justice for the seven farmers killed when government forces dispersed their protest at the plantation owned by President Benigno Aquino III’s family on Nov. 16, 2004.
“Hacienda Luisita farmers are still fighting for justice for the massacre victims,” said KMP chairman Rafael Mariano during a protest at the Ninoy Aquino Memorial Shrine in Quezon City to mark the 11th anniversary of the violent dispersal.
After more than a decade, Mariano said, nobody has been arrested for the killing of Jaime Pastidio, Jesus Laza, Jhaivie Basilio, Juancho Sanchez, Jessie Valdez, Jun David, and Adrian Caballero who died after government forces opened fire on striking farmworkers in Tarlac.
At least 50 peasant leaders from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Malaysia, the United States, Australia, and the Philippines, joined the picket to show their solidarity and support for their struggle against the family of President Aquino.
The leaders are here for the Peasant Anti-Imperialist Solidarity convened by the Asian Peasant Coalition, the International Fisherfolk and Fishworkers Coalition, and the KMP.
“We are here in the Philippines to express solidarity with Filipino farmers and fortify the collective struggle of Asian peasants against globalization and its policies affecting farmers,” said Rahmat Ajiguns, leader of AGRA Indonesia and secretary-general of the APC.
“While the Aquino government is busy with its superficial image-building and overkill preparations for Apec this week, human rights violations intensify across the country,” Mariano said, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week.
He said the international community is now fully aware of Aquino’s record of human rights violations and the state of injustice endured by Filipinos.
“Aquino carries out his economic policies through brutal force and those who question, oppose and get in the way are either killed or persecuted. To date, almost 300 farmers were killed under Aquino’s reign of terror,” Mariano said.
Mariano said the Hacienda Luisita massacre may be a distant memory for President Aquino and the Cojuangco and Aquino families, but Filipinos will never forget it.
“The farmers struggle in Hacienda Luisita will remain a thorn in the throat of Aquino until his last day in Malacañang and beyond,” he said.
“Up until today, Hacienda Luisita remains in the control and stranglehold of Aquino’s relatives, the Cojuangco-Aquinos and no lands were distributed to farmer-beneficiaries despite the decision of the Supreme Court in 2012. In fact, the Aquino administration, through the Department of Agrarian Reform, local courts and agencies have prevented the actual distribution of lands in Hacienda Luisita,” he said.
“The Cojuangcos implemented scheme after scheme of maneuvers to undermine the farmers’ struggle and to prevent actual land distribution,” Mariano said.
Hacienda Luisita, Mariano said, has become a symbol of Filipino farmers’ “struggle against a despotic landlord and the grave injustices that befell on the peasantry under Aquino’s presidency.”
In a manifesto, the KMP noted that “the landlord-President and the entire Cojuangco-Aquino clan utilized all state machineries and used various legal and political maneuvers to continuously deprive farmers and further strengthen landlord control over the lands.”
The KMP also assailed what it described as “connivance” between the DAR and the Cojuangcos on various issues, including the list of farmer-beneficiaries and the reduction in the size of land marked for distribution under the Agrarian Reform Program.
“On top of these maneuvers, militarization, violence and abuse of rights of the farmworkers further intensified in Hacienda Luisita. The Northern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines is positioned at the very gates of the Hacienda and stationed within are different units of the military, police and paramilitary including the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the AFP, the Tarlac Provincial Police, private security guards, and the Cojuangcos’ ‘Yellow Army’ who are wreaking havoc and perpetuating fear and violence against the people of the hacienda,” it said.