Also posted is the complete report of the IPSM delivered to the Commission on Human Rights, Senate and the House of Representatives with some details of the latest cases of killings, abductions, harassment and burning of homes.

MANILA -- Making small cuts on their wrists and then signing their names with their own blood on a manifesto, members of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) on Friday vowed to exhaust all means and mobilize the peasant majority towards ousting President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

In the manifesto they signed with their own blood, the peasant leaders from Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog regions accused Mrs. Arroyo of murdering peasant leaders, diverting fertilizer and other farm funds towards her 2004 electoral campaign, authoring or perpetrating pro-imperialist globalization measures and for siding with oppressive landlords who dispossess peasants.

The Mendiola Massacre occurred on Jan. 22, 1987 after Philippine police and soldiers fired at a peaceful peasant demonstration led by the KMP. It demanded the then Aquino regime to implement a genuine agrarian reform. Thirteen peasants were killed in the massacre, while scores were injured. Read a survivor's account of the Mendiola Massacre

Mendiola is the name of a bridge leading to the presidential palace.

Since the dark days of martial law, October 21 is a day of protest for Philippine peasants against landlessness, poverty and state repression. This year, thousands of farmers and fisherfolk massed up in Metro Manila and provincial town centers to demand land, food and respect for human rights. In Quezon City, Hacienda Luisita farmers picketed the house of ex-president Cory Aquino whose family owns the hacienda in Tarlac. On October 20, farmers from allover Luzon held a street conference against landlessness, hunger and poverty at the gates of the Department of Agriculture. They were joined by representatives of other people's organizations and NGOs in a solidarity night later that day. On October 21 they held a short program in front of the Department of Agriculture before proceeding to Malcanang. In Welcome Rotonda, the border of Quezon City and Manila, the protesting farmers were stopped by the police. Undaunted, they decided to hold their program there.

Pictures: Picket at Cory's house | Street conference | Solidarity night 1 | Solidarity night 2 | Program at the Department of Agriculture | Caravan to Malacanang | Program at Welcome Rotonda | The crowd at Welcome Rotonda

See also: Hunger and World Food Day

World Food Day came and went last Oct. 16 with hardly a whimper. Maybe this is due to the discomforting irony that on World Food Day's 24th year, 840 million people suffer from extreme hunger.

But in the Philippines the sector most affected by hunger--the peasantry--wasn't quiet. Hunger was the theme of the Oct. 15 World Rural Women's Day protest in Quezon City, which called for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The series of forthcoming peasant actions in observance of Peasant Week will also focus on the massive hunger in the Philippine countryside--where the country's food is produced.

Related stories:
Panay peasants observe World Food Day with a protest rally
Pahayag sa Pandaigdigang Araw ng Kawalan ng Pagkain

Hundreds of peasant organizations and support NGOs, representing millions of poor Asian farmers, are currently participating in the People’s Caravan 2004 for People’s Food Sovereignty that is sweeping through 15 countries across Asia and Europe. This year’s People’s Caravan bears the theme “Asserting Our Rights to Land and Food” and will culminate in Nepal with a public rally and the Conference on Alternatives to Globalization on September 30. This activity aims to raise awareness on the issues involved in food sovereignty, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), genetic engineering (GE), pesticides, agrochemical TNCs, and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.

The Caravan's Philippine leg runs from September 8-16 and is hosted by RESIST, a broad alliance of individuals and organizations who are opposing agrochemical TNCs and imperialist globalization, while Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines) serves as its secretariat. Forums, debates, dialogues and protests are being held in Metro Manila, Panay, Bicol, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Cordillera, Cagayan Valley and Davao City.

During its activities in the Philippines, the Caravan advocates the people’s rights to land and productive resources, campaigns for the removal of food and agriculture from the control of the WTO, and demands the elimination of pesticides and genetic engineering. The People's Caravan likewise continues to build the resistance against agrochemical corporations' domination on agriculture.

[People's Caravan 2004 | RESIST Agrochemical TNCs | Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas]

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On July 31, past midnight, the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Council reached an agreement in Geneva on a number of controversial trade issues. The corporate media were quick to hail the ‘July Package of Framework Agreements’ as a breakthrough for the World Trade Organization's Doha Round of negotiations that had been stalled after the failed ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico last year.

In Cancun, the poor countries were able to stand their ground knowing that no deal was better than a bad deal. During the negotiations in Geneva, they agreed to a deal in order to avert more harm and to stall the forceful moves of the EU and US to impose more disadvantageous deals upon them.

NGOs monitoring the negotiations and some delegates of poor countries criticized the agreement for betraying the poor and stressed that the rich countries were able to get what they wanted through bullying and intimidation of the delegations from the south. [Full story]

Last Jan. 22, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP - Peasant Movement of the Philippines) remembered how 17 years ago in Mendiola at the approach of the presidential palace, Marines and police opened fire at some 30,000 peasant protesters and 13 of them were killed. KMP chairperson Rafael Mariano said at that occasion that the case is not a closed book. He actually wants a bill filed in Congress for indemnification of the victims and their families.

(Right: Bulatlat.com file photo)

The Filipino masses are not likely to forget 2003 for a long time. They will most probably remember this year as one of the worst in recent history.

Aside from a crisis-ridden economy which the government tried to veil with lies (with hardly any success), the different basic sectors of the people had to put up with their own litanies of misery.

The workers, in this centennial year of Labor Day observance in the Philippines, had to endure high unemployment. The peasantry found themselves poorer than in previous years. Likewise the urban poor suffered from an acute lack of jobs, social services--and hope.

IMC-QC presents a series of yearend reports from Bulatlat.com.