Uprising of the Marginalized
SPDA, DENR, DAR, DA & CHR: Your Insensitivity and Inaction Have Fueled Our Poverty and Oppression. “Better to die fighting for our rights than to die silently from hunger. The time has come for us to stand up—for our rights, for justice, and for the truth!”
No less than the highest law of the land—the Constitution—clearly states that a public office is a public trust. It is the government’s foremost duty to serve the people with the highest degree of professionalism, integrity, and commitment.
The Philippines is an agricultural country. Any meaningful short- or long-term development hinges on agriculture, especially since 75% of our population lives in rural areas, depending directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihood. Yet it is deeply troubling that, according to a study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO), Philippine agriculture has contributed only 0.02% to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the past decade. Even more alarming, three out of every four young farmers have abandoned farming, choosing instead to work in cities as janitors, drivers, waiters, and other low-paying jobs.
Everyone profits from farming—fertilizer and seed dealers, middlemen, and loan sharks—except the farmers themselves who endure the backbreaking labor of tilling the land. This injustice is due in large part to a broken marketing system. Every product sold in this country goes through at least five layers of middlemen. For example, a bag of fertilizer purchased for P100 in Ukraine is sold for around P2,000 in Mindanao. Farmers’ produce—like rice and corn—is bought at low prices by middlemen, only to be sold at significantly higher prices to consumers. This flawed system severely disadvantages the very people who grow our food.
Agriculture in the Philippines remains tied to a conventional model that perpetuates the poverty of the peasantry. Who controls the system? Who profits? Who makes the decisions? Certainly not the farmers. It is the oligarchs—those who monopolize seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and the entire marketing chain—who wield all the power.
In the past, farmers had full control over their seeds, cultivating indigenous varieties like Azucena and Denorado—native rice strains that could be grown organically and were both sustainable and healthy. These have since been replaced by so-called high-yielding varieties (HYVs), which are dependent on chemical inputs and serve only to benefit agrochemical corporations.
This is the harsh reality of how oppressed our farmers are. And their situation is even more dire in places like Sitio Kibaritan, Malinao Kalilangan in Bukidnon, where they live in extreme poverty under the constant threat and oppression of armed men in uniform. Their farms—once abundant with corn, root crops, sugarcane, vegetables, and more—are now being destroyed by tractors, bulldozers, and grids, wiping out their livelihood.
According to documentation by their own organization, the Kibaritan Farmers Higaonon Tribe Agriculture Cooperative, approximately 160 farming families have fallen victim to land grabbing and destruction of property. In just the past two years, these families have suffered damages amounting to over two million pesos. Their crops—ready for harvest and crucial to their food security and livelihood—were destroyed. This blatant oppression is a grave violation not only of their labor rights but also of their basic human rights.
Such actions directly contradict the Philippine Constitution, which guarantees that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Furthermore, this is a case of gross social injustice, violating another Constitutional provision stating that “The State shall promote social justice in all phases of national development.”
Now, the cooperative is urgently appealing for justice and support from the government agencies mandated to protect and assist farmers and indigenous peoples—namely, the DENR, DA, DAR, and CHR. Yet, to this day, no meaningful assistance has arrived. Shockingly, these very agencies have sided with the perpetrators of injustice instead of defending the oppressed.
In the case of the DENR, it entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of National Defense (DND), paying around 20 million pesos to three geodetic firms to conduct a Relocation Survey. This survey resulted in the surrender of farmers’ lands to the military reservation and served as the basis for the destruction of their farms. This was confirmed by Atty. Ban Micheal Pacuribot, Chief Legal Officer of DENR Region X.
As for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), despite clear documentation showing that these lands are classified as Alienable and Disposable (A&D) and therefore under DAR’s jurisdiction, the agency has made no effort to protest or question the validity of the Relocation Survey.
The Department of Agriculture (DA), meanwhile, released funds amounting to P299,650 to the Mindanao Army Training Group (MATG) in Kibaritan, supposedly under the ELCAC initiative, based on the unverified and questionable claim that there are about 100 former rebels (FRs) in the area.
Most appallingly, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has remained utterly inutile and unresponsive, failing to protect not only the rights of the oppressed farmers but also the lives of five innocent children. On March 25, 2016, these children became victims of an explosion caused by an Unexploded Ordnance (UXO)—a deadly remnant carelessly left by military personnel. Three of the children died instantly, and two were seriously injured. The UXO was left without any warning, just 50 meters from an elementary school that had been irresponsibly converted into a firing range.
To this day, the CHR has shown not only inutility but also shocking insensitivity in the face of this tragedy. The glaring apathy and inaction of the aforementioned government agencies stand in direct violation of Article XI, Section 1 of the Philippine Constitution, which clearly states: “Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must-at-all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.” Honorable officials, your lives of public service should be a beacon of hope amidst the growing darkness of corruption in civil service. Unfortunately, this corruption persists due to deeply entrenched problems such as nepotism, cronyism, militarization, political patronage, and the absence of transparency and accountability.
Have compassion for the poor and oppressed farmers of Sitio Kibaritan, Malinao, Bukidnon—people who are in desperate need of the very services you are constitutionally mandated to provide.
Even more alarming is what is unfolding in Amai Manabilang, Lanao del Sur, where approximately three thousand Ilocano farmers are being forcibly and coercively evicted by the Southern Philippines Development Authority (SPDA), in collaboration with the local government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). This is being done to make way for two foreign corporations aiming to convert the farmers’ lands into vast plantations.
This is a glaring violation of the rule of law, social justice, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The SPDA claims ownership over 26,000 hectares—16,000 hectares in Wao and 10,000 hectares in Amai Manabilang—completely disregarding the prior rights of Ilocano farmers who settled there in the 1950s. These farmers have cultivated and nurtured their land based on principles of sustainability and harmony with nature.
If the SPDA truly holds legal claim to these lands, it should pursue the proper legal process and secure a court order. Instead, it resorts to violence and intimidation. Farmers who resist the daily plowing of their farms are beaten—clear evidence of ongoing human rights violations committed by these state agencies.
This is not governance guided by law and justice, but by brute force, greed, and impunity. It is a betrayal of public service and a clear statement that the government prioritizes foreign investors over the very people it is meant to protect. Firm in the belief that sovereignty resides in the people, and that all government power derives from them, the poor and oppressed farmers of Kibaritan and Amai Manabilang have chosen to harness their collective strength in the pursuit of freedom from hunger and oppression. In this spirit, they have decided to shut down these government offices—institutions that have become a mockery of what government is meant to be: of the people, by the people, and for the people.
All this is done for the greater glory of God—the Unseen, the Supreme Being who created us with dignity and freedom.
