Reds say land reform key to industrialization

LUCENA CITY—A rarely heard of underground group of farmers sought to add its voice to a proposal, in the words of presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, to “concede” the agrarian reform program to the Left.

This early, however, the group Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM), one of the organizations under the umbrella of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF), said the Left’s demand for genuine agrarian reform could be met only through the success of peace negotiations between the incoming administration of Duterte and the leftist rebel movement.

In a statement, Andres Agtalon, spokesperson of PKM, said while the group supported the resumption of peace talks under a Duterte administration, the Left already had a model for agrarian reform—its own.

The NDF, said Agtalon, was already carrying out a “revolutionary agrarian program” in guerrilla bases and territory.

The program, he said, went on while the government’s “failed agrarian reform program” led to “widespread land grabbing and displacement of farmers.”

A genuine agrarian reform program, said Agtalon, had two key characteristics—breaking up “land monopolies” and “free distribution of land.”

The NDF, the PKM spokesperson said, had already outlined an agrarian reform program that would lead to rural development and was supported by “adequate and affordable irrigation systems, farm-to-market roads, more farm technicians, post-harvest facilities, marketing agencies and research and development.”

The NDF idea of agrarian reform, he said, would lead to rural industries spurred by agricultural modernization and food processing.

The objective, said Agtalon, was for rural development to be a key ingredient of “national industrialization and progress.”

For a start, according to a left-wing militant group of farmers, Duterte should certify as urgent the pending Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill in Congress.

Antonio Flores, secretary general of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, said the Department of Agrarian Reform, which Duterte offered to concede to the Left, would no longer have a mandate to carry out agrarian reform because the law that allowed it to do so, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with Reforms, had expired on June 30, 2014, except for its provision on land distribution.