The country commemorates the Peasant month this year along with an urgent and critical challenge: decisively combat all attacks of the Marcos II regime. Like his father, Marcos II’s programs are wholly policies of oppression and exploitation. The ruling elite’s current head does not value the primary force of this nation – the peasantry.

Marcos II attacks their livelihood. The first salvo of laws passed by Marcos II clearly shows that he does not prioritize the farmers’ most basic demand for genuine agrarian reform. He only continues and even expedites the full liberalization and neglect of local production. He acts as a usurer in issuing a loan program instead of comprehensive and longterm agricultural solutions. He allows the unbridled landgrabbing and reconcentration of lands in the hands of big land owners.

Marcos II also robs them of their right to live. By virtue of Marcos II’s orders, the AFP-PNP-CAFGU continues its attacks against the ranks of the peasantry. Just over three months into this regime, eight Bikolanos have already been killed by military and police elements. Six of them were farmers. Militarization in communities and barrios in the countryside and farmlands also intensifies. Everyday, the peasant masses and civilian population endure the state’s indiscriminate violence and fascism.

The dictator’s son distorts the history of their struggle. The regime systematically buries the Marcoses’ crimes against the peasantry and the farmers’ staunch struggle against the horrors of martial law. The current generation is forced to forget the fact that even then, the peasants have been unyielding in their fight for their rights, lives and future.

In the face of these and all the other attacks that the Marcos II currently wields and will inflict upon the farmers and the whole nation, the peasantry’s task is starkly defined. They must uprise and continue their struggle. They are the hands that feed the nation. They must also be the hands to attain genuine justice and freedom from oppression and exploitation. Together with the other oppressed classes, their hands shall clear the path towards the creation of a brand new society that can give true peace and progress.