TEMPLE-BEAUDRY : Sponsors Sought for Filipino Farmers

A Filipino American activist group is seeking donors to sponsor peasant farmers in the Philippines who are lobbying for agrarian land reform.

The Philippine Peasant Support Network, which uses the acronym PESANTE, has been sending clothing, shoes and medicine to poor farmers in the Philippines since 1991. But the organization needs help expanding its services to support activist farmers financially while they take time off from farming to lobby for reforms.

“A lot of them have had to leave their farms to organize full time,” said Edwin Habacon, a group coordinator. “This helps them feed their families.”

The peasant farmers hope to persuade the Philippine government to allow them to claim some of the land they farm from large landowners, changing a traditional “hacienda” system that, with the exception of a few small-scale reforms in certain areas, has withstood political changes since the 19th Century.

“In Spanish times, the land was parceled out to wealthy landowners,” Habacon said. “It’s semi-feudal. The landlords pass the land from generation to generation, while the peasants are called squatters on their own land. Their ancestors have been there forever.”

Because many of the landowners allow farming for multinational agricultural corporations, much of what the land produces is exported, said Joe Navidad, a former farmer in the Philippines who now supports the peasants’ movement from Los Angeles as chairman of BAYAN International USA, a peasant-rights umbrella organization that works with the peasants group. To compensate, food products must sometimes be imported from other countries, he said. “Even their rice is imported from Thailand.”

The agrarian reform program proposed by the farmers would allow them to grow more crops for national consumption.

The peasant group hopes to find businesses or individuals willing to subsidize the farmers’ losses with $100 a year, or whatever the donor can afford, so they can continue to support their families while pursuing reforms.

For farmers in areas where land reform has already taken place, the group is also seeking donated farm equipment and implements as well as new or used work clothing.

There is also a scholarship fund for the children of peasant organizers, and a fund for the widows of 13 farmers who were killed during a Manila protest in 1987.

Although several members of the local Filipino community have shown support for the peasants, Habacon said, there are others who have assimilated into American culture so deeply they no longer consider the issue.

“A lot of people think this is their new home, and don’t want to look back,” he said. “We live here, but we still think of back home.”

For information, call Edwin Habacon at (213) 625-7705.