Letter to the Editor — The tiller's struggle for the right to land will not be defeated by GMA's undeclared martial law

Today, human rights advocates from KARAPATAN join our peasant brothers and sisters in underscoring the importance of a genuine agrarian reform that is being continuously deprived them by the pretentious Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law enacted on June 10, 1998.

We decry the violence unleashed against our peasant folks who are struggling against land-grabbing and for their right to live decently as human beings. Many of those aspiring for the realization of the tiller's right to land have been killed by state security forces in the last five years of the fascist Macapagal-Arroyo regime.

Six hundred eighty four (684) Filipinos were arbitrarily killed, 287 among them were activists. Peasants bear the brunt of GMA's undeclared martial law with 452 farmers as victims of extra-judicial killings.

The peasants' right to land, together with the Filipino people's right to self-determination, will always be aspirations that the Filipino people will struggle for. Fascism may rear its ugly face at the height of struggles for land and social change, but no cruelty can make our people give up the fight for what is right, even at the cost of their lives. Mrs. Arroyo's undeclared martial law will never defeat a movement of people fighting for change.

We pay tribute to peasant leaders like Eddie Gumanoy, Victor "Tatang Ben" Concepcion, Ofelia "Nanay Perla" Rodriguez, Ernesto Bang, Ricardo Ramos, Nicanor de los Santos, Renier Cusio and many other peasant-activists whose blood drenched the land so that one day Filipino peasants can own the land they till and the Filipino people will reap the fruits of their labor.

Marie Hilao-Enriquez
Secretary General
KARAPATAN