Farmers’ group backs resolution vs Cha-cha

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines – The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) supported the filing of a resolution in the opening of the 16th Congress to oppose Charter change (Cha-cha) and the plan to grant 100 percent land ownership to foreigners.

The farmers also proposed a new land reform law that seeks the free distribution of land to landless peasants.

KMP secretary-general Antonio Flores said that instead of denationalizing the economy through Charter change and granting 100 percent foreign ownership of land, Congress should heed the peasants’ demand for the nationalization and free distribution of agricultural lands.

“It is totally ironic that while we offer foreigners 100 percent ownership of lands, our farmers remain landless and exploited,” Flores said.

He said Cha-cha and the sell-out of our land to foreigners is not the solution to poverty and will only worsen hunger among the poor.

Flores said KMP supports Anakpawis party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap in filing House Resolution 13 opposing Cha-cha and House Bill 252 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.

The resolution noted that Charter change that seeks to give foreigners full ownership of lands and the denationalization of the economy “will worsen and deepen semi-feudalism in the Philippines.”

“It will strengthen the control and domination of foreign big businesses, bourgeois compradors, and big landlords over the semi-feudal, agrarian, and backward economy to the detriment of genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization,” the resolution said.