Stop Harassment Of Filipino Farmers Resisting Land Grabs – PANAP

18 September

PENANG, Malaysia – PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) today denounced the reported military harassment against Filipino farmers embroiled in longstanding land disputes with powerful landlords and business interests, noting that the military presence violates the farmers’ rights to security and freedom from intimidation.

On September 10, a group of at least 50 military personnel, police, paramilitary, and local government officials forcefully entered the disputed Lupang Ramos estate in the Philippines’ Cavite province (about 50 kilometres south of Manila). The military men and public officials claimed to conduct a surprise inspection of the farmers’ hogs for the African Swine Flu. In a separate incident, vehicles of the Philippine police’s special action force and military tanks parked for several hours in Lupang Tartaria, another disputed estate in the same province.

“Such display of power by state security forces sends a chilling message to local communities that resist land and resource grabbing, especially in the Philippines where there has been continuing and worsening attacks against peasant organisations,” said Arnold Padilla, PANAP deputy executive director.

Lupang Ramos is a 372-hectare land that has been the subject of a dispute between farmers and the landlord Emerito Ramos in the past five decades. In 1972, the national government was supposed to distribute the land to the farmers under its agrarian reform program. However, the landlord declared the cultivated land a residential area, cunningly exempting it from land distribution.

Lupang Tartaria, meanwhile, is 155-hectare land at the centre of a decades-long conflict between farmers and the Aguinaldo clan – one of the oldest elite families in the Philippines – and real estate giant Ayala Land. Earlier this year, the dispute escalated after armed security personnel reportedly hired by the Aguinaldo and Ayala groups assaulted protesting farmers.

Despite numerous challenges, Filipino farmers continue to hold their ground. In 2017, farmers of Lupang Ramos, for instance, started their collective cultivation as part of their assertion of their right to land, including efforts to apply agroecological practices.

In 2023, PANAP partners through the Asian Peoples’ Exchange on Food Sovereignty and Agroecology (APEX) and the Global Peoples’ Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice (GPC) visited Lupang Ramos to learn about their struggles and show solidarity.

The farmers’ struggles in Lupang Ramos and Lupang Tartaria reflect a broader narrative of peasant resistance across the Philippines, where the fight for land and justice remains central to the aspirations of millions of rural Filipinos.

“The Filipino farmers’ unwavering will to fight for genuine land reform amid intense political repression is truly inspiring. We stand in solidarity with them and join their call for the military and police to cease the harassment of communities in these disputed lands. We support the demands of human rights and farmers’ advocates for investigating these reported cases of intimidation,” Padilla said.

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