March for Land >> October 10-December 10, 2007

‘Land for the Sumilao farmers.’ Ten years ago in October, Linda Ligmon held up this sign with her four children on the steps of the Supreme Court building. She and 14 other farmers of the Mapadayong Panaghiusa Sa Mga Lumad Alang Sa Damplag (MAPALAD) of Sumilao, Bukidnon came to Manila for a 28-day hunger strike at the Department of Agrarian (DAR) office in Quezon City.

After calling for the redistribution of 144 hectares of their ancestral land controlled by the Norberto Quisumbing Sr. Management and Development Corporation (NQSRMDC), they were awarded 100 hectares by then-president Fidel V. Ramos, while the remaining 44 went to NQSRMDC. The Supreme Court shortly nullified the decision.

In 2004, after the NQSRMDC’s stalled development, San Miguel Foods Inc. bought the land from the Quisumbings to put up a piggery farm. This despite a petition filed by the Sumilao farmers for the cancellation of the conversion order, that would allow the irrigated land to be converted from agricultural to agro-industrial property.

To this day, barred by electric fences and armed security, they remain outsiders to their own land.

The Sumilao farmers are again demanding that the conversion order be cancelled, and the land that is rightfully theirs returned. Last October 10, 2007, 10 years since their first mass protest in Manila, they began a 60-day ‘March for Land’ from Mindanao to Visayas and Luzon joined by other farmers from the regions. With this plea for land ownership to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is an appeal for the passage of HB 1257, a bill to extend and reform the current Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), so that no other Filipino farmer may suffer as they have.

As legal co-counsel to the Sumilao farmers and co-drafters of HB 1257, SALIGAN (Sentro ng Alternatibong Lingap Panligal) believes in this fight, and that it could be won with you in it.

Take part in this historic campaign in the following ways:
1. Make a financial contribution. Help fund our public awareness and mobilization efforts.
2. Sign our petition and spread the word. Strengthen the farmers’ plea to the President on http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/sumilaofarmers/index.html.
3. Join the March for Land. Welcome their arrival in Malacañang and the DAR on December 10, 2007.

For more information, you may visit www.sumilaomarch.multiply.com or e-mail saligan.philippines@gmail.com.

Support the RH Bill!

SALIGAN is sending out these postcards to members of Congress, urging them to pass the Reproductive Health Bill. We're not asking them to kill babies but to save lives.

How? We want individuals and couples to take charge of their reproductive choices. We want mass access to reproductive health services and information. We want effective reproductive health education. We want population management that results in social and economic progress.

We want what this country needs. So should you.

Bills may be for politicians. Laws are for people.