The situation of farm workers nationwide
There are an estimated 13 million agricultural workers natiowide. They are peasants who are completely dependent on selling their labor-power in the countryside to survive.
The absence of land to till is the main reason for the burgeoning number of agricultural workers. Landlessness is the plight of 75% of the peasantry. Thus, they are forced to sell their labor-power or engage in various kinds of occupations.
There are two kinds of agricultural workers: the traditional, composed of poor and lower-middle peasants who do not earn enough from farming and sell their labor-power to landlords or rich peasants. They can be found in rice fields, corn fields, coconut plantations, vegetable fields, tobacco fields and even in haciendas and plantations of export crops (sugar cane, pineapple and bananas, among others) that utilize some modern equipment.
Traditional farm workers comprise 95% of agricultural workers natiowide because agricultural implements remain backward. Big compradors and landlords do not invest in modern equipment like harvester combines because there is after all a huge number of farm workers they could hire for very low wages.
A small number (5% of the total) may be regarded as modern farm workers. They are concentrated in big haciendas and capitalist farms such as pineapple and banana plantations wholly owned by foreign agricultural corporations or in partnership with comprador-big bourgeoisie and landlords.
They use modern equipment like tractors and trucks for hauling. They also become regular workers in sugar mills and warehouses stocked with agricultural products.
The worsening social crisis continues to exacerbate the unemployment problem in the countryside. Those who do get employed receive extremely low wages. The regional wage boards already set low daily wages for agricultural workers (ranging from P135 [US$2.45] in Western Visayas to P222 [US$4.04] in Northern Mindanao). But landlords and the comprador-bourgeoisie further depress these wages. For example, the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura or UMA reports that in the rice fields and coconut plantations of Occidental Mindoro and other areas in Southern Tagalog, the daily wage comes to a mere P70 [US$1.27] to P80 [US$1.45]. In Cagayan Valley, the usual daily wage comes to P70 [$1.27] and in Samar, it is a mere P50 [US$0.90].
In the sugar cane fields of Eastern Visayas, a family is paid P80 [US$1.45] for a day's work. In Hacienda Luisita where the daily wage is supposedly pegged at P190 [US$3.45], there are instances when workers' takehome pay comes to a measly P9.50 [US$0.17] for a week's work after numerous deductions by the company.
Hacienda owners and the comprador-bourgeoisie also employ various means to deceive farm workers to further squeeze them dry and deny them their rights.
As far back as the Marcos dictatorship, land was overassessed to make it difficult for "land reform beneficiaries" to make their amortization payments. It turned out that a mere 2% were able to complete their payments. The rest remained landless and neck-deep in debt.
The succeeding Aquino regime laid out many more ways to deceive the peasant masses. One is the sham Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law with its Stock Distribution Option (SDO) where landlords and comprador-bourgeoisie distribute worthless stock to farm workers to make it appear that they were co-owners of the hacienda, thus evading land reform. CARP also allowed lease-back agreements where large tracts of land supposedly owned by the state and planted to bananas and pineapple, among others are rented out to and controlled by foreign agro-corporations for up to 75 years.
In sugar cane fields and sugar centrals in particular, hacienda owners contribute P5 per picul (weight measure equivalent to 60 kilos) to the Sugar Development Fund, in addition to the initial capital of P20 million, to defray expenses for the recruitment of CAFGU and establish detachments in the haciendas to suppress the farm workers' resistance. The Sugar Amelioration Act of 1991 (RA 6982) and the accompanying Sugar Amelioration Fund junks the issue of land reform altogether, and instead obligates hacienda owners to allocate funds to alleviate the poverty of farm workers and poor peasants in haciendas. Aside from denying them their right to land, RA 6982 allocates such a tiny amount for peasants and farm workers�loose change compared to the billions of pesos in gross earnings of hacienda and sugar central owners�nd is hardly even implemented!
The Ramos regime and subsequent administrations did not bother to implement even a showcase land reform program. Instead, massive land-use conversion became the norm. Land previously distributed to peasants reverted to the hands of landlords. Also under Ramos, "free market globalization" gained ground with the help of policies legislated by then senator Gloria Arroyo. Since then, there has been large-scale dumping of imported agricultural products in the domestic market. Bankruptcies plagued the agricultural sector at an unprecedented scale. Among those that suffered most was the production of traditional export crops like sugar cane.
In the face of all of this, it is the poor peasants and farm workers who bear the heaviest burden. They suffer mass layoffs, their unions crushed and they are further subjected to violence. Those who retain their jobs have their wages severely depressed. Benefits won through decades of struggle by the toiling masses are revoked.
It is but just for organized farm workers to fight for their immediate interests such as decent wages, humane working conditions, job security and the right to unionize and to strike. It is likewise correct for them to relentlessly fight for land reform as the long-term solution to their land problem. The clamor for genuine land reform goes hand in hand with the call for national industrialization�the solution to the chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system.
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