Quezon peasants stage ‘Calvary of Coconut Farmers’ protest

Some 50 members of various coconut farmers groups carry crosses as they march in Lucena City in protest of two executive orders on the coconut levy funds recently signed by President Benigno Aquino III. Delfin T. Mallari Jr./Inquirer Southern Luzon

LUCENA CITY – Quezon coconut farmers on Maundy Thursday dramatized their protest against the two controversial executive orders (EO) of President Benigno Aquino III on the coco levy fund through a reenactment of Jesus Christ’s sufferings.

At least 50 coconut farmers, some of them women, marched around major streets here in a Lenten protest activity dubbed as “Calvary of Coconut Farmers”.

The male protesters alternatively carried two wooden crosses in depiction of Aquino’s EO 179 and 180. Four shirtless farmers also lashed their backs with improvised whips made of palm fronds.

Jansepth Geronimo, spokesperson for the Kilusan Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (Katarungan), said EOs 179 and 180 were the latest “cross of sufferings” that Aquino had inflicted to the millions of coconut farmers across the country.

“Under the Aquino administration, the millions of coconut farmers continue to carry the cross of sufferings and live under a perpetual calvary,” Geronimo said.

He vowed that the coconut farmers would again march to Malacañang to demand the repeal of the two EOs and replace them with the true aspirations of impoverished peasants.

“I volunteered to carry the cross as my own way of protest against P-Noy’s executive orders. Mr. Aquino’s orders were a big disappointment to us all,” said one of the farmers who carried one of the crosses.

Geronimo said the coconut farmers have long been pushing for the creation of a trust fund from the multi-billion pesos coconut levy fund.

“But with Mr. Aquino’s EOs, the gates of plunder of the farmer’s money were now left wide open through his dubious and questionable privatization schemes,” Geronimo said.

EO 179 governs the disposition and privatization of recovered coco levy-funded assets while EO 180 provides the guidelines for the use of the recovered P71 billion from San Miguel Corp.

Aquino signed the two EOs on March 18.

The Kilusan para sa Ugnayan ng mga Samahang Magniniyog (KILUS Magniniyog) – the coalition of nine peasant groups behind the Davao City-to-Manila protest march last year – had also vehemently objected the EOs.

On November 26 at the end of the march in Manila, President Aquino and several Cabinet members hosted a meeting and conducted a dialogue with the marchers.

In the meeting the President declared that he was on the side of the coconut farmers who were proposing for the establishment of a trust fund from the coco levy fund.

The proposed trust fund aims to preserve and protect the P71 billion and make available its annual interest income for programs directly benefiting impoverished coconut farmers for generations to come

“It took the President three long months after to issue the EO. But instead of protecting the fund, the EO had opened the gates to the use of the entire P71 billion,” the Kilus Magniniyog said in a statement.

“Worse, it inserted consultations with the coco farming sector solely for implementation purposes alone,” the group said.

Eduardo “Ka Ed” Mora, lead convener of Kilus Magniniyog, described the two EOs as the “Mamasapano of coconut farmers”.

“The issuance of the two EOs was a traitorous act of President Aquino to the coconut farmers. It was like the Mamasapano incident but this time it victimized millions of coconut farmers,” Mora said in a phone interview last March 21.

Mora claimed that the coconut farmers were not consulted in the drafting of the two executive orders.