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Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) is seeking donations to support full-time organizers for peasant and farmer rights and livelihoods in the Bulacan province in the Philippines.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, or the Peasant Movement of the Philippines, is a member of La Via Campesina (International Peasant Movement).
Context
The livelihood of peasants and farmworkers in the Philippines are threatened by the Marcos Jr. regime’s rampage to conduct charter change, which is an attempt to amend the Constitution of the Philippines to allow for 100% foreign ownership of agricultural land, utilities, hospitals, media, and other industries.
Opening the Philippines’ farmland up for foreign investment will intensify the ongoing crisis for Filipino peasants and farm workers, who currently face many threats:
- Feudal and semi-feudal exploitation in the Philippines’ countryside. The Marcos Jr. regime has already implemented anti-agricultural policies and programs that have encouraged high land rents, rampant usury, depreciation of agricultural products, (rice, corn, vegetables and others), and ballooning input costs (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.).
- Militarization of the countryside. State Security forces have attacked and assassinated KMP farmers and activists often to benefit foreign and domestic companies. Peasant rights organizations connected to La Via Campesina have been labelled as terrorists, facing arbitrary arrest and detention.
- Ongoing land grabbing by non-farmers, evicting agriculturalists from their land that, in many instances, they have cultivated for decades.
- Aerial bombings of rural communities and indigenous peoples.
Small-scale peasant-led agricultural and social movements have been particularly hit hard in the province of Bulacan. Mass leaders have died, and the government’s terror tactics have directly caused the dissolution of the peasant-led Provincial Council that previously coordinated farmers’ campaigns.
The KMP needs financial support for organizers to mount grassroots resistance to the Marcos Jr. regime and the charter change. Without this support, the future of small-scale, ecological farming in the country is imperilled.
General human rights conditions and those of peasants in the Philippines can be read in the Investigate PH report.
KMP’s Request
KMP is seeking a minimum of $6,000 CAD in donations annually to support two full-time organizers who will revive the Bulacan Provincial Council of peasant farmers and lead a mass campaign that empowers farmers, agricultural workers, and fishermen to say no to foreign investment and to advance local food production, production subsidies, and aid to disaster victims.
The KMP organizers will mobilize a mass movement around the slogan “Demand for Land, Food and Justice!” These organizers will travel throughout the province of Bulacan and set up or reactivate farmer and peasant organizations in and around the City of San Jose del Monte and the City of Malolos.
$6,000 CAD supports the salaries of 2 organizers for one year and helps to cover their transportation, food, and communication costs. Each organizer needs 10,000 PHP (pesos), or approximately $250 CAD, per month to cover living and mass campaign expenses.
All donations beyond $6,000 CAD will be used to cover costs in future years or support additional organizers this year in the region and will help ensure a successful mass campaign and revitalized peasant and farmer movement in Bulacan.