Inquirer: Nonviolent struggle ends in murder

Sunday, June 14, 2009

MANILA, Philippines–After tearing down a barbed-wire fence, a group of 55 farmers broke into the 50-hectare piece of property in Sumilao town in Bukidnon that food giant San Miguel Corp. (SMC) handed over to them on March 29 last year.

Overwhelmed by emotions, their leader, Renato “Ka Rene” Peñas, jumped three times and scooped a fistful of soil. “Mao ning yuta nga atong gibarugan. Ato na gyud! (This is the land that we have been struggling for. It is finally ours!),” he cried out.

 

For Ka Rene and the other farmers of Barangay San Vicente, their entry into the estate was a victory not ordinary for thousands of other farmers like them struggling to own land.

Although they were awarded 144 hectares of prime farmland under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the farmers had waited over 12 years for that to happen.

Their actual possession had been continually held back by powerful interests through legal technicalities and threats to their lives.

Nonviolence

Agrarian reform advocates described Ka Rene as a firm believer of farmers’ rights and lauded him for taking the road of active nonviolence “even in the most desperate moments of (their) struggle to reclaim their land.”

The party-list group Akbayan called him “the gentle giant of agrarian justice.”

“Not once did he consider violence. Even when he stood face-to-face with the armed goons of their rich landlord, he never considered lifting a finger in retaliation and meet violence with violence,” read a statement from the Balaod Mindanaw, a nongovernment group assisting the Sumilao farmers.

Ka Rene’s killing on June 5 was, therefore, a tragic end. He was 52.

Fatal

Ka Rene was gunned down while he was on his way home at midnight of June 5.

The day after, police arrested Alipio Tumanday, the alleged leader of a group of men behind the killing.

Police said Tumanday allegedly squats on a piece of land which had been awarded to the Sumilao farmers, and that Ka Rene tried to intervene.

Ka Rene’s family, however, wants a deeper investigation into the killing, citing some inconsistencies in the police report (like the location of the bullet wounds suffered by the victims) and what they believe actually happened.

Story of struggle

“No murder is ever justifiable. But to kill a man who is a staunch advocate of peaceful means to protect and push for the rights of peasants, one who has never lifted a finger to hurt anyone, makes his murder ruthless, senseless and brutal,” the Balaod Mindanaw said.

In September 1995, the farmers were awarded the estate, but this was revoked in March 1997, after Malacañang approved the land’s conversion from agricultural to agro-industrial use, this exempting it from CARP coverage. The farmers had since fought to reverse this decision.

In October 1997, Ka Rene was among 15 farmers who went on a hunger strike for 28 days in Quezon City and Cagayan de Oro City to dramatize their demand to reclaim the land. The Supreme Court, however, ruled with finality in 1999 to uphold the land-use conversion order.

Seeing that the estate’s owners had not complied with the supposed land use conversion for five years after the Supreme Court decision, the farmers sought to put the land under CARP coverage again in 2004, in keeping with its implementing rules.

The renewed campaign drove them to launch a 60-day “Walk for Land, Walk for Justice” in October 2007. It meant walking some 1,700 kilometers from Sumilao to Manila, overcoming hunger, fatigue and the elements, to reclaim the land, this time already acquired by SMC.

Search for change

Through the march, the farmers gained the 50-hectare estate in March last year, as well as bound SMC to provide them the remaining 94 hectares. Their campaign also inspired fellow farmers and other people to seek change.

In July last year, the Ateneo de Manila awarded the Sumilao farmers and lawyer Arlene Bag-ao of the Balaod Mindanaw the Ozanam Award “in recognition of their faith and courage to seek justice through active nonviolent way, and for letting their light shine on the entire nation.”

The complexity of the Sumilao case and the legal loopholes it exposed have made it among the watershed experiences in shaping up the proposal on CARP Extension with Reforms (Carper). In fact, the 1,700-km march already carried the same call.

Because of this, Ka Rene himself never wavered to help other farmers fight for their rights.

Last year, he served as organizer-trainer of the 444-km walk by farmers from Banasi, Bula, Camarines Sur, to Malacañang to demand recognition of their land rights.

Another fight

In February, Ka Rene again led farmers from Sumilao, Davao and Agusan in a journey from Cagayan de Oro to Manila to press for Carper. The group was joined by farmers from Banasi and Calatagan, Batangas, and reached the national capital on March 3.

Since then, they have campaigned in the streets of Manila and in the halls of Congress, adding to pressure that culminated in the passage of Carper by the Senate on June 1 and by the House of Representatives two days later.

In a brief speech during the May 28 screening of the documentary film “Lupang Hinarang” at the Ateneo, Ka Rene lamented that struggling farmers like him had to remind government functionaries in Manila about the letter and spirit of the land reform law so they could be assured of its no-nonsense implementation.

At the time of his death, Ka Rene was chair of the provincial farmers’ federation in Bukidnon, vice chair of the Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka (Pakisama) and councilman of San Vicente in Sumilao.

“A tribute to you, Ka Rene, for your gallant fight for the peasantry. May the seed that you sowed grow and bear fruit, and we will continue the fight you had began for a world we all cherish,” the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Samahan sa Kanayunan (PKSK) and the Kilusan Para sa Repormang Panakahan at Katarungang Panlipunan (Katarungan) said in a statement.

The Balaod Mindanaw said: “Ka Rene’s brutal death will inspire us (to) emulate his courage and spirit of self-sacrifice.”