Issue of Landlessness is Changeless

By: Isabel Bautista 

**This is a fictional story based on the real-life issue of landless farmers in the Philippines. There are details that connect to actual evidences of the actual issue.**

It was the year 2017, an 18-year old boy named Daniel was staring blankly at his laptop while sitting in a black Honda car. He had to write down an article about Filipino farmers for his group project and he is sighing. He could just write a really creative story but it has to have substance to it. Ian fell back on the car seat with his mother driving and his two younger sisters at the back.

He was on his way to his grandparents' home because his grandfather is having a birthday and a party. It was bad timing since the deadline of the project is inching closer. Most of his group mates have already finished writing at least one article while he is stuck trying to even begin one. Plus: Why does he have to attend  birthday party? It isn't like he was close with his grandfather in the first place. The little sisters screamed and scared Daniel; they screamed as they were excitedly fighting over to the window to see a carabao (water buffalo). They arrived to a crowded rural town that was at least three to five hours away from Manila.

The car stopped in front of a small house where several neighbors and their families are gathered. The mother ordered Daniel to stop using his gadgets and to carry the large box inside the car's trunk which is a gift. Daniel packs his laptop inside his bag and went out of the car. He opened the trunk and took out the large box.

"Kuya, what's in the box?" his second little sister Nina asked.

"It is just Lolo's present, duh!" his first little sister Bea answered.

Daniel shooed his two little sisters out of his way and told them, "Actually...it is the corpses of annoying girls who don't move out of my way." Then the two little girls were shocked at his statement that they told their mother. "Wait! I was kidding! Don't get me into f...any trouble!" Daniel yelled at them. He sighed as his mother angrily looked at him and he went straight inside the house.

He saw his 72-year old grandfather walking towards him with a walking stick. The old man did not recognize Daniel and Daniel did not recognize him, they were two strangers of two generations. The grandfather watched Daniel place the large box beside a couch before he could start a conversation with the young man.

The old man looked from Daniel's toes to his face and asked, "Sino 'ka?"

"Um...I am Daniel...your grandson. Po," Daniel meekly said, not wanting to speak Filipino since he wasn't used to it. He gulped as the old man smiled.

"Daniel pangalan mo? Your name is Daniel?" the grandfather grinned then slapped his hand on Daniel's arm and gripped his fingers to Daniel's surprise. The old man then laughed for a while for no reason the young man could confer. The grandfather then said, "Haha! My name is...also Daniel!"

Daniel and Daniel looked at each other, one is smiling while the other is trying to smile. Daniel Jr. just cannot muster how he should feel about it but his grandfather seems very much happy about it. At least Daniel knows what his mother named him after.

The party goes on and everything is conversing withe each other. People passing paper plates and other things that are done in Filipino parties. Meanwhile, Daniel works at the corner thinking about what to write. He had PDF files for his research yet he can't type anything. He was completely blank.

Daniel Sr. asked what he was doing, "What is wrong, Apo? Why are you not eating?"

Daniel sighed and explained that he had a project about Filipino farmers, "I am trying to make like a story about farmers so that I can at least a decent grade for the final project. I am pretty busy and it is like due tomorrow." He said he got all the analysis but he can't seem to make it into a creative output as he originally wanted as he did not want it to be boring, "I am conflicted about even making a story from this point on. I need something that got a bit of information but the internet got nothing".

Then Daniel Sr. asked Daniel what is happening with Filipino farmers, "Maybe you can start telling me what you know about them?"

Daniel shares a few news articles he read about and some statistics he found in a book. Daniel said that there is a huge problem as there are many landless farmers. They lack representation and, despite the Agrarian Reform, there is still a lot of farmers not getting their land such as what happened in Hacienda. He told news about the issues happening against farmers from Philstar, Inquiry, and Rappler.

Then to conclude, Daniel told his grandfather, "There are still farmers in poverty. They try to make other means of living but things are still hard. There is not enough opportunities for the farmers compared to people like us who already have decent jobs." He then felt his hand shaking from speaking quickly about his research, "Like it IS 2017, Lolo. What happened to these farmers? Why can't they get some land or something?"

After hearing that, Daniel Sr. brought Daniel a plastic cup of coke as he looked like he needed something to freshen up. "Apo, let me tell you. It was always like this even in my time," Daniel Sr. spoke solemnly as he said those words. Daniel Jr. sipped on his drink and wondered what is his Daniel Sr. trying to say to him. "Let me tell you this, Daniel. Even after our history of wars, Filipinos just cannot avoid the struggles of survival."

"I...I'm listening," Daniel Jr. said.

Daniel Sr. began sharing to Daniel a story from the 70's. "I was a farmer back before when I was younger and stronger in this same town. There was a powerful family who once owned the land and I was lucky enough to be a tenant of their land when I was 25-years old. My family did not own their own land despite being tenants for such a long time. There were chances we could claim our land but we all got our reasons for not doing so." Daniel Jr. wanted to butt in into the story because he only heard stories typically about the corrupt government and businesses yet he decided not to so he wants to know it from the perspective of his grandfather. Also, it would be rude to do so. To continue...He told stories of landless households (even when they were tenants) saying some people went to find other ways of earning money besides farming, population pressure, and capitalism as some of the initial reasons of landless farmers. He actually told that before his time, there were less landless Filipino farmers that it was actually supposedly rare. "Some people had trouble with tenancy rights and some had personal problems; I heard a story that once a family claimed their land but the Tatay sold it all the way for gambling and pok-pok," he said while laughing.

"What is pok-pok, Lolo?" Daniel Jr. asked like an innocent little boy that he is.

Then the grandfather just laughed at his grandson for not knowing the word, "It means prostitutes, Daniel!" Then he laughed more hysterically as Daniel Jr. blushed in slight embarrassment.

"So! Anyway!" Daniel Jr. interrupted the laughter.

"Ah wait lang...ano pa?" Daniel Sr. mumbled under his breath. He then remembered something else, "Also besides those personal problems because it is unavoidable that it is sometimes their own choice. But sometimes it is not always their choice. I still remember when the Philippines went under the Marcos then Aquino then to the rest of the presidents I lived to see until Duterte. When the system changes so do the rules but these changes did not change the..uh...situation of the farmers. There were more than half of farmer households who are working and trying to make a decent living. There are farmers that tried to be loud but they ended up losing their lives! Some just simply were unheard of, and people like me...we kept quiet. Those few quiet ones could not care as they are lucky the government did not try to slaughter their livelihood."

Daniel Jr. asked, "Could you...expound...I mean explain further? Like I heard stories about it from a book I read in a library. It was called Everyday Politics in the Philippines: Class and Status Relations in a Central Luzon Village by Benedict J. Tria Kerkviet." He read the name of the book on his computer as he saved a picture of the book's cover.

"Let me shorten it to this because my English is not so good: we just had no voice," Daniel Sr. told with a bit of sadness in his voice. Daniel Jr. noticed that from his research. These Filipino farmers are still helpless and powerless because there is no representation of them. Without a voice that could speak against the government's flaws, the government could just simply step on them as the initial thought is: no one is complaining then there is no problem. Daniel Sr. then asked, "Since you said that it is 2017, would you care to tell me if anything has changed from back the 1970's?"

The grandson looked at grandfather then at his laptop as he tapped his fingers on the keyboard without typing a single thing and just making noises as he fidgeted. He then mustered all the knowledge he can remember to his grandfather, "There is still SO MANY landless farmers. There is the Agrarian Reform which is meant to help farmers get the rights to their own land yet that didn't help anything! We tried checking if there are labor unions for farmers, well there are, but these farmers are only those working for commercial farms. The ones who are really poor, the ones who really got no land even when they are working their entire life on the soil, they are still unheard of. Even if they are able to create themselves into groups or try to seek out to political parties, they still lack the representation in the government." Then Daniel Jr. looked at Daniel Sr. asking, "Did the Agrarian Reform exist before? If so, tell me the rules about it."

Daniel Sr. responded by saying that it was effectively implemented on 1988, "To be exact, it was 15 June of 1988 when it was effectively implemented into the system. I was 45-years old, somewhere two years after the program was introduced, that I was able to earn the land that was due to me. This land where we are standing, Daniel, I was able to earn it after almost half of my years living in this world." That truly was indeed a feat. "I was lucky that no one falsely evicted me of crimes, tried to steal ancestral lands, businesses bribing me to give it away, and government forcing me to give it back. There are many reasons to this issue, Daniel. It isn't simply just about the corruption of the government but its negligence. The Agrarian Reform itself did not help everyone even back at my time, those rich people tried to find loopholes and we, the farmers, are sometimes too financially poor to pay back our own dues. When you buy something, you still need to pay to take care of it. Much like a car, a house, and a family. There were really a lot of expenses."

"But...you have your crops and harvests. Stuff like that you have, right? Can't you try to sell them?" Daniel Jr. asked.

"Well, we don't have the technology to always keep our crops safe from El Niña and El Niño. Sometimes there are times I wanted to sell my land because the quality of the soil is not very good. Sometimes you would want to sell it to the capitalists and maybe they can 'help' you instead," the grandfather said. Daniel Jr. also heard those problems in today's times. Without a higher power to "help" farmers manage their crops, the farmers will then struggle. The higher powers know they are are needed and if their help is not taken, the farmers will be the ones struggling. "The circumstances were just not easy for us. Especially since a lot of buyers prefer to get their supplies from those large commercial businesses rather than smaller ones because of the cheap prices and quality of products or something similar to that. That is how capitalism works, no? It is like...the thing of Darwin!" the grandfather struggled to remember.

"The survival of the fittest, like that?" the grandson asked.

"Yes, yes! The businessmen, the mga mamayaman, they are truly the fittest when it comes to the agricultural business. They know more about marketing than we do and that is why we get left out most of the time," the grandfather sighed. Daniel Jr. understood that capitalism is sort of destroying the agricultural sector of the Philippines in that way. He also knows it is not helping that Duterte is pushing for more on the industrial sectors than the agricultural sectors as well. The grandfather then looked at the his grandson who had finished his plastic cup of coke, "Ah...would you want me to get you another drink?"

"No..no," the grandson waved his hand while holding the empty plastic up. Then he remembered a word and said. "No. Po."

Then the grandfather smiled and patted the head of his grandson, "Sometimes...I wonder if things have changed since my time. Did anything become different?" Daniel Sr. deeply wonders if anything changed in his head with all the technology and the mass media. "Has it changed, Daniel?"

Daniel looked at his grandfather and looked at his own research from the 2010's and thinking about the grandfather's story of what seems to be like 40 plus years ago. He sighed and said, "No" and he then said "It is still changeless."