World | Philippines
Spotlight on farms of Mike Arroyo's family after protest
Farms hands working on plantations owned by the family of Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's husband on Monday staged a protest at the University of the Philippines in suburban Quezon City demanding the extension of an agrarian reform programme.
- By Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief
- Published: 00:12 May 6, 2008
Manila: Farms hands working on plantations owned by the family of Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's husband on Monday staged a protest at the University of the Philippines in suburban Quezon City demanding the extension of an agrarian reform programme.
The 1987 Constitution mandated an agrarian reform programme that imposed an ownership ceiling of three hectares of rice fields on members of land-owning families.
The barefooot protesters, numbering around 30, had rice sacks for loin cloth and held banners calling for the reforms to be implemented on four farms of Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo in Batangas in southern Luzon, Negros Occidental and Oriental in central Philippines and in Bukidnon in the southern Philippines.
Summit today
"Extend the implementation of agrarian reform programme after June," "Extend the lifeline of farmers. Land reform programme must have no deadline," read messages on the banners as the group streaked through the campus.
The farmers said they had come all the way from southern Luzon and the central and southern Philippines to highlight their plight. They later held a vigil with university students supportive of their cause.
Catholic bishops who have lent their voice to the cause of landless farmers are expected to be among participants attending a "summit" on agrarian reform at the campus today.
Annual tradition
It was for the first time that students participating in the so-called Oblation-run at the university campus had been joined by farmers. The run is an annual tradition of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity in the campus.
Last year, members of the fraternity covered their faces with colourful ski and yuletide masks as they streaked through colleges holding placards that called for Arroyo's ouster.
Former president Corazon Aquino was criticised for having exempted sugar plantations, like her family-owned Hacienda Luisita in Pampanga, central Luzon, from the purview of the agrarian reform programme when it was initiated during her term in 1987.
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