For the first time in over a decade, the Philippines’ major agrarian movements, joined by climate justice advocates, came together in a historic protest campout outside the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Central Office in Quezon City.
On June 8–11, tents, hammocks, and protest banners lined the Elliptical Road, as more than 500 peasants, farmworkers, indigenous peoples, fishers, women, youth, rights activists, and climate advocates filled the streets outside the DAR.
This unprecedented unity under the newly formed coalition called the June 10 Land Rights Committee (J10LRC) signaled a renewed, broad-based initiative to bring agrarian reform back onto the national agenda.
The 38th anniversary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) became a rallying point to pressure the government to act on the long-unfulfilled promise of social justice and pro-poor rural development.
During the protest action, peasant leaders and J10LRC advocates held dialogues with DAR officials in the agency.
Protest turnout peaked on the morning of June 10, the actual CARP anniversary, with nearly 1,000 workers, urban poor, women, and youth joining the campout participants.
Their message was clear: Agrarian reform is not merely an issue for peasants and other rural working people, but the foundation for food sovereignty, climate justice, and people-centered development for every Filipino.
Challenge
The J10LRC issued a direct challenge to Agrarian Secretary Conrado Estrella III: Face the protesters and resolve 30 longstanding agrarian reform cases, or confront the coalition’s intent to take the fight directly to the Office of the President and to scrutinize the DAR budget in Congress.
“Secretary Estrella spends his time vlogging,” said Claro Pasion, national president of the Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (or Katarungan). “We would like to remind him that he is a secretary, not a social media influencer. He needs to face us, immediately resolve the cases we presented, address widespread land rights violations, investigate anomalous decisions, expedite pending cases, and [remove] erring DAR officials.”
Pasion said Estrella’s recent vlogs are part of efforts to rehabilitate the legacy of his grandfather, Conrado Estrella Sr., who served as minister of agrarian reform under the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
The bulk of the campout participants came from Southern Luzon, especially Quezon Province and Mindoro, and Central Luzon, but there were also representatives from Eastern Samar, Leyte, Negros Occidental, and as far as Davao del Norte in Mindanao.
The protesters’ demands are rooted in nearly four decades of broken promises. For many, CARP’s anniversary is not a cause for celebration.
“Instead of celebrating, we farmers are filled with sadness and anger on this CARP anniversary, given the staggering volume of land rights violations and unresolved cases plaguing farmers nationwide,” said Luz Bador, honorary president of the Pambansang Koalisyon ng Kababaihan sa Kanayunan (PKKK).
Estrella did not face the protesters during the campout. He appeared instead in a vlog on another issue, filmed from a hospital bed.
Cases that can’t wait
To dramatize the plight of small farmers, protesters plastered a giant mock-up of a certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) on the DAR gate, symbolizing the 38-year wait of the Filipino farmer.
Among the cases presented by the farmers to DAR officials are the delayed implementation of agrarian reform decisions and the non-installation of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) despite favorable rulings or the issuance of CLOAs. These include the Manuel Uy Ek Liong estate in San Narciso, Quezon Province; Carballo and Mendieta in Tanjay, Negros Oriental; Hacienda Fernandez Hermanos in Davao del Norte; Haciendas Rodriguez, Leonardia, and Magdalira of Pontevedra in Negros Occidental; Don Carlos, Bukidnon; and among ARBs in Medellin and Toledo City, Cebu.
They also highlighted the unresolved implementation of the homelot provision for 6,296 ARBs in Hacienda Luisita, Tarlac—a case emblematic of the enduring challenges of agrarian reform in the Philippines.
The farmers also cited the land reform reversals, including the cancellation of CLOAs in Sariaya, Quezon, and retention claims that threaten previously awarded lands in Maliwalo, Tarlac.
These issues of land dispossession are compounded by the growing criminalization, harassment, and violence faced by peasant leaders. In Sumalo, Hermosa, Bataan, for instance, leaders are accused, they say unjustly, of over 50 administrative, civil, and criminal cases.
The farmers cite as well a broader trend of agricultural land-use conversion, intensifying corporate land grabs, and increasing land reconcentration. Each case is a story of hope deferred, rights denied, and families left in limbo.
“What is deeply painful for us farmers in Sariaya is that the CLOAs already awarded to us were revoked,” lamented Efren Mendoza of the Ugnayan ng Magsasaka sa Sariaya, Quezon. “We nurtured this land and worked hard to make it productive. But now, they are claiming it is not agricultural land.”
Substantial but undermined progress
Despite strong landlord resistance, substantial progress was made in land redistribution, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s, due to robust grassroots mobilization and alliances between agrarian movements and reform-minded officials. Through these efforts referred to as the “bibingka strategy,” almost half of 13 million hectares of agricultural land—including public, private, and forest lands—were redistributed, benefiting roughly three-fifths of peasant households.
Yet, these significant but partial redistributive gains have been undermined by a host of new and persistent challenges.
Neoliberal policies have liberalized agricultural imports and reduced government support for small farmers, while rapid urbanization has converted vast swathes of rural land to nonagricultural uses. Today, half of all Filipinos live in urban areas. At the same time, peasants and agrarian communities are becoming ever more vulnerable to the intensifying impacts of climate change. Ultimately, these combined pressures have steadily eroded the rural working people’s ability to make a living in agriculture.
As the landscape of agrarian struggles evolves, land struggles are increasingly intertwined with pressing concerns over food sovereignty and climate justice.
Milestone
The protest campout was a milestone not only for its broad unity and militancy but also for reframing public understanding of land and agrarian reform. This broadening of the fronts of land struggles was encapsulated in the banner slogan, “Lupa, Pagkain, Hustisya sa Klima—Ipaglaban (Fight for land, food, and climate justice),” which complemented the declaration that agrarian reform remains unfinished business.
“The root cause of our food crisis is government neglect and the total abandonment of our farmers—the very hands that feed our nation,” said Laica Rayel, senior campaign officer at the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ). “Unless our officials act on this immediately, the future of the Philippines is doomed.”
The PMCJ underscored how unresolved land disputes, land reform reversals, and widespread harassment and criminalization of farmers have led to a cycle of dispossession and poverty. It said these injustices, in turn, aggravate food insecurity and threaten the country’s ability to withstand climate shocks.
“Landlessness is one of the major burdens on Filipino farmers, not only in securing our food supply but also in weathering supercharged climate events,” Rayel said. “With utmost urgency, we demand that the Philippine government address farmers’ land issues and climate crisis impacts on our people.”
The J10LRC and its allies said the four-day campout was only the beginning.
“We vow to hold the line until every single farmer across the Philippines is awarded the land they till, and provided the comprehensive government support they urgently need,” Pasion said.
The J10LRC is composed of Katarungan, PMCJ, PKKK, Pagkakaisa Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Paragos) Pilipinas, Alter Trade Foundation Inc., Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Pambansang Kaisahan ng Magbubukid sa Pilipinas, Makabayang Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Aniban ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, Focus on the Global South, Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka, Task Force Mapalad National Peasant Federation, Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang Magbubukid, Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Samahan sa Kanayunan, Samahang Nagkakaisang Magsasaka ng Barangay Sumalo, and Katipunan ng Bagong Pilipina.
It is supported by Kamanggagawa Partylist, Akbayan Partylist, Oriang, K4K-QC, Lilak (Purple Action for Indigenous Women’s Rights), and other allied groups. CS
Karlo Mikhail I. Mongaya has written extensively and published research on the histories of social movements, agrarian issues, and the martial law era in the Philippines. He is a researcher for the Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan, a member of the Collective of Agrarian Scholar-Activists from the South, and one of the co-conveners of the June 10 Land Rights Committee. He is also an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman and associate editor of the Agrarian South Research Bulletin.
