Teachers to PNoy: Justice for farmers and farm workers of Hacienda Luisita!

“The thorny issue of land distribution is once again awaiting a decisive action by PNoy. He should remember, that it was hailed then as a landmark law during her mother’s term as president of this land. So what are you waiting for Pnoy?”, said Ms.France Castro, Secretary-general of Alliance of Concerned Teachers. “Those farmers have waited for more than twenty years and so justice must be served,” she added.




It is now the fundamental challenge for Pnoy’s political leadership. He must be decisive on the Hacienda Luisita case. Will he take the road to genuine development or turn a blind eye on the centuries –old bondage and exploitation of peasant and farm workers on the hands of big landlords of haciendas like Hacienda Luisita?”asked Ms. France Castro.


“Go , for social justice!” Ms. France Castro said . “ Our agriculture has long been backward and battered by trade and investments liberalization, privatization of agricultural extension services, and deregulation of government’ s role including its default on the implementation of a genuinely redistributive agrarian reform program.”


At the same time, agricultural production is small scale and technology is backward. The corporate firms such as those for export crops such as fruits and sugarcane, are concentrated in the hands of few families and transnational corporations.” Prominent families such as PNoy’s have made fortune out of these export crops and yet,’ kapit-tuko’ pa rin sila sa Hacienda Luisita,” Ms. Castro exlaimed.

The exacerbation of landlessness is most telling in regions designated as growth areas for foreign investments and export production resulting to new norms of exploitation, especially the increasing number of farmers becoming farm workers to augment their incomes.

Inhumane and deplorable working conditions of work and slave wages for land and agricultural workers such as in Hacienda Luisita is prevalent. We heard enough how globalization has intensified the destruction of the agricultural productive forces and landlessness and sunk millions of Filipino peasant families deeper into poverty.

By infusing profit-driven market oriented schemes and measures relying on foreign funding, the government has defaulted on its responsibility to implement a genuine land reform program.

“If PNoy wants to move forward to genuine development of our Motherland, then he must start fixing the problem in his own backyard. He must break the land monopoly which breed various exploitative relations in agriculture like rent and usury. He better set a good example, or else gain the wrath of the people including teachers who are closely watching this issue.” added Ms. Castro.

Teachers to PNoy: Justice for farmers and farm workers of Hacienda Luisita!