Ron Perkins
On October 26, Ka Ric Ramos, president of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), became the latest victim in the year-long strike of sugar mill and agricultural workers at the Hacienda Luisita in central Luzon. Shot dead by unknown assailants, Ramos had received constant death threats since bargaining negotiations with Hacienda Luisita management collapsed.
The sprawling 6500-hectare estate, which covers 11 barangays (villages), is owned by members of the Cojuango family, closely related to former Philippines president Corazon Aquino. The dispute is part of a 20-year campaign by the thousands of peasants who originally owned the land. In 1957, the land was "purchased" by Joes Cojuango, financed with a loan from the Central Bank of the Philippines on condition that it be returned to the original owners. However, the Cojuango family has refused to honour the agreement.
In 1985, the farmers won a legal victory when the Manila regional trial court ruled that "the entire hacienda [be conveyed to] the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, which shall take possession of the hacienda into small lots and be conveyed at small cost to qualified and deserving citizens". However the Cojuango family utilised provisions in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law implemented under former President Aqino to reverse this. Their jobs under threat, the peasants agreed to be issued with shares in the hacienda, which have turned out to be worthless scraps of paper.
The Cojuango family has been converting large areas of the land into an industrial park, resulting in 500 farm workers losing their jobs and sugar mill workers getting only one or two days' work per week. Paid only US$3.50 per day and receiving only 17 cents after deductions, the entire work force has been driven into dire poverty.
A picket line set up by the workers last year closed down the mill to force the Conjuango family into negotiations with CATLU and the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) for a collective bargaining agreement. However negotiations broke down when the Cojuango family sacked 326 members of the ULWU, including its president and eight officials. In the ensuing days, despite repeated attacks on the picket by the military, the mill remained closed. By conspiring with the department of labour, the Cojuango family was able to obtain a legal order deeming the picket a labour dispute in an industry indispensable to the national interest, enabling it to legally end the dispute with the use of force.
On November 15, 2004, police and military opened fire on the unarmed picketers. The hail of gunfire left seven picketers dead and many injured. The police later claimed that it was the picketers who had opened fire, but video footage of the massacre clearly refutes this. In the following weeks a wave of political assassinations swept the region as supporters of the hacienda workers, including Rev. Fr. William Jadena of the Philippine Independent Church and Tarlac City councillor Abelardo Ladera, were killed. Fifteen unionists have been killed in 2005 in Central Luzon since Brigadier General Jovito "the butcher" Palparan took control of the 7th Infantry Division in Tarlac.
Alerted to the situation by Philippines delegates at the Sigtur regional conference on trade-union rights held in Thailand on June 26, WA Maritime Union of Australia assistant secretary Ian Bray has called on Australian unionists to support the picketing Hacienda Luisita workers. The WA MUA branch has raised $2000 to be sent to the picketers and is urging others to follow suit. Of concern to Bray is the Australian government's commitment to increased funding of "counter-terrorism" activities in the Philippines, given the military's track record of human-rights abuses and killing of unionists.
Bray told Green Left Weekly that unions in this country had a moral obligation to call upon the Australian government to ensure that Australian taxpayers' money was not being used to suppress the rights of workers in the Philippines.
[To support the campaign, send solidarity letters and donations to: Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union, c/o Kilusang Mayo Uno 63 Narra St. Proj. 3, Quezon City, Philippines. Email <kmuid@tri-isys.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 9, 2005.
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