The choices Filipino farmers make
By JUSTIN UMALI
SANTA ROSA, Laguna – Rommy Torres is a farmer in Sitio Compra, Barangay San Mateo, Norzagaray, Bulacan. He was a quiet man who cultivated bananas and other root crops.
Last year, agents from Royal Moluccan Realty Holdings, inc. fenced off 75.5 ha. of disputed land and separated farmers like Torres from their crops. RMRHI has tried to stake its claim to the land since 1998, but the farmers have lived there since the 1950s.
Last February 3, Torres entered the fence to harvest his bananas. He failed to return home that day, and was found stuffed in a drum in Mabitac, Laguna, some 100 km away. He was 52 years old.
(Keith Bacongco / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
In a statement, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) alleged that “armed representatives” of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) have repeatedly harassed Romeo Torres and his fellow farmers.
Torres, a farmer from Norzagaray, Bulacan, was found dead on Feb. 5 in Mabitac, Laguna.
His remains were stuffed inside a plastic drum plastered with cement and thrown in a creek. He was first reported missing three days before his body was discovered.
“We believe that the NTF-ELCAC is complicit in the murder of Rommy Torres. Armed representatives of the red-tagging task force have repeatedly harassed Torres and his fellow farmers. Their brazen actions have at least emboldened the goons directly responsible for the crime,” said KMP National Chairperson Danilo Ramos.
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6 farmers arrested for harvesting own crops, hundreds others evicted due to land grabbing
Demolition in Norzagaray, Bulacan (Photo courtesy of KMP)
“The situation of Filipino peasants when they marched from Central Luzon to Mendiola in 1987 remains unchanged, and even worse this 2021, especially with the rising cases of peasant massacres and mass killings under the Duterte administration.” – KMP
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
MANILA – Peasant groups condemned the arrest of six farmers in Norzagaray, Bulacan after harvesting their own crops, and the series of eviction of farmers in Bataan, Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan and Iloilo.