Lessons from the Hacienda Looc struggle
On July 1, the Supreme Court finally threw out the case filed by around 10,000 farmers against Fil-Estate Inc. and Manila Southcoast Development Corporation, landgrabber-developers of the 8,650-hectare Hacienda Looc. But due to their political consciousness and united strength forged through five years of struggle, the court's decision did not weaken the farmers' resolve to continue striving for genuine land reform
Gathering strength. The farmers offered scattered resistance when the reactionary state cancelled their land titles in 1995 to pave the way for the developers' plan to put up a giant tourist facility in Hacienda Looc. But the farmers eventually banded together. By means of a militant organization they established, they effectively exposed and opposed the developer-government conspiracy to grab their land. They also strongly resisted the fascist violence inflicted on their ranks.
The peasants' unity was forged by exposing Fil-Estate and MSDC's antipeasant project. Their militancy was raised and their fighting will strengthened as they grasped the basic nature of the land problem and the roots of the entire people's suffering.
Facing the developers' schemes. The developers attempted to destroy the farmers' unity and quell their resistance. They also paid lip service to "reforms" and organized fake peasant groups led by their agent, barangay captain Max Limeta. Limeta employed intimidation and violence as well as money to compel the farmers to surrender their land and conviction. Expectedly, some farmers were deceived, pressured or coerced and bought off by the developers due to extreme poverty, and this caused the peasant association to suffer some setbacks.
But because the capitalists' attempt to push land conversion only intensified their suffering, majority of the affected farmers, especially those from the most basic strata, were more than ever impelled to fight. In response, they assiduously launched various forms of mass actions to oppose the project and ventilate the issue of genuine land reform. At the same time, the peasants asserted their land rights by redoubling their efforts to plant and cultivate their fields.
Renouncing reformism. The peasant association also frustrated the attempt of revisionist renegade Frank Pascual's faction to lead the militant peasant struggle astray.
Pascual and his cohorts posed as revolutionaries. While turning a blind eye to the state's unbridled use of violence against the farmers, they bragged about the "peaceful solution" to the land problem. They distorted the state's innate character in order to defend the ruling class and impart the erroneous principle that the peasant masses could fully achieve their aspirations within the framework of the reactionary system (demonstrations, petitions, elections, negotiations, etc.).
Pascual's clique attempted to wear the farmers out through consecutive mass actions while dismissing the all-round strengthening of the mass organization. They slandered genuine agrarian reform as well as mass activists and revolutionaries who advocate it.
Pascual's camp failed as the farmers persevered in advancing the mass movement. The peasants addressed the painstaking task of strengthening their militant association within the framework of resisting feudalism. They continued to deepen their political consciousness and joined the national democratic struggle of the Filipino people.
Tactical victories of the mass movement. Through perseverance, the peasant movement in Hacienda Looc won tactical victories. Due to mass actions, the developers' destructive operations were temporarily halted. The greedy capitalists behind the project suffered losses while the mass movement in the area progressed.
Another tactical victory involved the peasant association's expos� that the project was allowed to proceed without an environmental clearance. Four times, cases were filed against the companies responsible for causing land erosion, damaging crops and muddying up the water in the hacienda.
Aside from this, a number of the hacienda's armed guards were convinced to resign and cooperate with the peasant association. Also due to the mass actions, government agencies were compelled to confront the peasants' protests. The Hacienda Looc struggle also gained national and international support.
Advance agrarian revolution. The farmers in Hacienda Looc are among millions of peasants firmly advancing the struggle against the sale and conversion of land as well as other struggles upholding their interests and rights. They continue to carry this out within the framework of a comprehensive program of reducing land rent, increasing farm workers' wages, eradicating usury and increasing peasant production. In the process, they constantly deepen their political consciousness, empower themselves and destroy the feudal power of landlords in the countryside step by step.
It continues to become ever clearer to the struggling farmers that the ruling system is the basis of their suffering. They have grasped that so long as the ruling system stands, reactionaries and counterrevolutionaries will connive and hatch up schemes to make their interests prevail.
Thus, the fight for genuine social change continues. Our duty to expand and deepen the farmers' and the entire people's unity for waging revolution continues. More Hacienda Loocs shall emerge and become arenas of intense struggles.
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