MIM Notes 223   December 1, 2000

Landgrabbing and violence in Hacienda Looc exemplify problems in 
semi-feudal countries

ITAL In 1999 MIM and RAIL helped premiere the documentary "The 
Golf War," which told of the land conflict in Hacienda Looc, the 
Philippines. In August 2000, MIM Notes correspondents visited 
Hacienda Looc to get an update on the situation there and collect 
video footage for follow-up presentations. Here is some of what 
they learned. END

Hacienda Looc is a community of 10,000 farmers and fishers 
covering over 21,000 acres in Batangas province, just south of 
Manila. Since 1993, the Manila Southcoast Development Corporation 
(MSDC) has moved to seize the land of Hacienda Looc and turn it 
into a golf and tourism resort. The MSDC and the u.$.-backed 
Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) claim this 
project will benefit the people of Hacienda Looc, but residents do 
not believe them. According to the residents' attorney: "Land 
conversion, which the government and the capitalists call 
'development,' destroys culture, destroys homes, communities, the 
environment, and doesn't really bring any benefits to our 
people."(1) The proposed resort would rob the people of Hacienda 
Looc of their homes and livelihoods.

Peasants, wimmin, and fishers have organized to resist this so-
called development. In 1996 they made a humyn barricade in front 
of the developers' bulldozers. Their resistance has stalled 
construction.

In response, developers turned up the pressure on the people of 
Hacienda Looc. Developers' hirelings threatened and beat 
organizers. Over the last year they burned villagers houses. Seven 
activists and peasants have been killed since 1995. Most recently 
two were killed on 4 March 2000 after they protested renewed 
resort construction. 

Security guards, police, and now even the Philippine military are 
a constant presence in Hacienda Looc. Visitors from outside the 
area -- including nuns and some foreign visitors -- have been 
forced to leave the area. Guards shadowed and eventually 
confronted MIM Notes correspondents as they walked through the 
development. A detachment of soldiers was in Hacienda Looc at the 
same time MIM Notes and another international fact-finding tour 
was there -- although the soldiers made sure none of the foreign 
visitors saw them.

Peasants aren't the only ones affected by the proposed luxury 
resort. The fishers of Hacienda Looc will also be evicted by the 
development. Furthermore, silt run off from the denuded hills and 
golf courses will kill off local estuaries and destroy the fish 
population. They also face competition from big Japanese 
commercial fishers and illegal fishers. So they have organized to 
fight for their interests as well.

Hacienda Looc is a good example of the bankruptcy of the u.$.-
backed GRP's so-called land reform schemes. Land reform is the 
most pressing issue in the Philippines. Around 75% of the 
population are poor or landless peasants, who have to give as much 
as 80% of their crops to landlords -- aside from sharing the cost 
of agricultural inputs and tools. If they have to take out a loan, 
they are charged usurious rates, which can lead to bankruptcy in 
the course of one season. So breaking the land monopoly of the 
landlords and giving the land to the farmers who till it is an 
important task -- so important that the GRP has to at least make a 
show of trying to carry it out.

Hacienda Looc was initially targeted for land reform by the Marcos 
dictatorship in 1973. In 1991, the farmers were actually given 
Certificates of Land Ownership or CLOAs by the Aquino regime. But 
the government revoked these five years later when the Manila 
Southcoast Development Corporation asked for the land in order to 
turn it into a golf resort.(2)

The legal reason the government gave for taking the land away from 
the farmers is that it is "non-agricultural land" -- despite the 
fact that it has been farmed for decades. The decision to cancel 
the CLOAs has been appealed and upheld several times. On August 4 
2000, the Office of the President upheld the cancellation.

Hacienda Looc is not alone. In just three hours MIM Notes visited 
four luxury developments going up on land which used to belong to 
farmers. One development, "Fantasy World," will feature such 
thrilling attractions as "Bible Land" and "The Country Club." 
Displaced farmers are promised construction jobs on these 
projects, but many do not get them. Even for those who do, they 
will not have jobs once the construction is complete. Many 
displaced farmers have swelled Manila's over-crowded shanty-towns, 
like Payatas, where a garbage dump recently collapsed killing more 
than 200 people.

Peasants are fed up with the hollow promises of the GRP's 
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). They have learned not to 
trust the DAR, which after all is part of a government made up of 
landlords and capitalists who toady to big foreign firms. Poverty, 
the inability of the GRP to undertake genuine agrarian reform, and 
violent repression drive the masses to get organized. 

MIM Notes asked Rafael Mariano, head of the Peasant Movement of 
the Philippines, what he thought the most promising development in 
the struggle of the peasants was.  He responded: "I think that 
it's the ever increasing and growing militancy of the peasants 
themselves, and the situation wherein more and more peasants join, 
not only the legal democratic movement... [but also] the armed 
revolutionary struggle in the countryside... More and more people 
are joining the struggle for national freedom and democracy.

"It's because problem of landlessness has not been solved. And the 
very character of the government has not been changed. This is the 
government of the local ruling classes, not the government of the 
Filipino people, not the government of the workers and peasants. 

"It is also these most exploited and oppressed classes wherein you 
can find the role and contribution and participation of the broad 
ranks of exploited wimmin. 

"But in this struggle, the Filipino people needs the support and 
participation of all the exploited peoples of the world. That's 
why we know very well the significance of what we call out 
internationalist duty: How to make the struggle of the Filipino 
people contribute to the anti-imperialist struggle worldwide."(3)

Many of the people MIM Notes spoke to said that the land problem 
in the Philippines and peasants' disillusion with the government's 
alleged solutions was driving the growth of the revolutionary New 
People's Army (NPA). The NPA, founded and led by the Communist 
Party of the Philippines, is waging a protracted people's war to 
liberate the country from imperialism, implement genuine land 
reform, and carry out national industrialization. The communist-
led revolution is fighting for socialism as a necessary stage 
between capitalism and communism where the people's right to 
national self-determination is preserved through the dictatorship 
of the proletariat.

The united $tates is the principal imperialist power in the 
Philippines.(4) In Hacienda Looc in particular, the United States 
Agency for International Development encouraged the GRP to open 
Hacienda Looc to tourism. Amerikan companies like Dole are 
directly involved in land-grabbing schemes. In general, the united 
$tates props up the GRP and promotes an economic system which 
allows the imperialists and a handful of their corrupt toadies to 
get rich while the majority of Filipinos suffer. The united $tates 
is the biggest supplier of arms to the Armed Forces of the 
Philippines, for example. Joint exercises between the Armed Forces 
of the Philippines and the united $tates pave the way for direct 
u.$. intervention. 

People living in Amerika's borders have an important role to play 
in opposing direct and indirect Amerikan intervention in the 
Philippines. Ultimately, the best support people here can give to 
the people of the Philippines and other peoples oppressed by 
imperialism is to build public opinion in support of the 
revolution in the Philippines while waging socialist revolution at 
home. A socialist North America would not send Green Berets to 
train Filipino reactionaries. Instead, it would send medical 
supplies and other resources which Filipinos could use to undo the 
effects of over 100 years of imperialist oppression.

Notes: 

1. MIM Notes 188, 15 Jun 1999 

2. Solidaridad, May 2000 

3. Interview, 25 Aug 2000 

4. See, e.g. MIM Notes 96, Nov 1994