Farmers to hold two-day protest on 25th year of Mendiola Massacre

Police line holding placards along Recto Avenue where a huge throng of militant groups were stopped by anti-riot cops. The rallyists wanted to march towards Mendiola to stage a rally in commemoration of the Mendiola Massacre in 1987. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

SAN PABLO CITY – The families of the 13 victims of the massacre in Mendiola 25 years ago, with members and supporters from a militant farmers organization, will stage a two-day mass protest in front of the Supreme Court and the historic Mendiola in Manila on Thursday and Friday.

Orly Marcellana, spokesman for KASAMA-TK ( Katipunan ng mga Magsasaka ng Timog Katagalugan), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a cellular phone interview that the families of the 13 killed, seven from Laguna, on Jan. 22, 1987, continued to hope that justice would finally triumph for the fallen farmers.

Marcellana said the group would hold a protest on January 19 in front of the Supreme Court and then proceed the following day to Mendiola to commemorate the 25th year of the massacre.

He expressed sadness that the case filed at the regional trial court 25 years ago against the suspects of the mass murders and the subsequent appeal at the Court of Appeals were dismissed.

But the families of the farmer-victims, Marcellana said, would not be cowed into pursuing the case for their murdered loved ones.

They want the case to be elevated before the Supreme Court.

The former head of the farmers’ group also said that the farmers would continue to demand from the government the division and distribution of huge lands of the Hacienderos to the tiller farmers.

In their 25 years of seeking justice for the massacre victims, Marcellana said, more violence had been committed against them.

The Mendiola Massacre took place in 1987 when the mother of President Benigno Aquiino III, the late Corazon C. Aquino, was at the helm.

Under her son’s administration, at least 56 farmers and supporters were victims of extra-judicial killings, eight were abducted and remained missing, and 356 jailed for political reasons, Marcellana said.

He said Aquino’s administration so far has not included any  program on land reform or of distributing lands to the farmers as he himself was a land owner.