Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association, Inc., (MARBAI) is an association comprised of 159 member agrarian reform beneficiaries of mostly banana farmers, workers, planters and growers. Our organization existed as an offshoot to our collective efforts to recognize our rights to a fair livelihood in order for us to function as a productive force in the industry we helped build.
Most of us have been in the banana business in more years than we can recall until such time that our living condition had dramatically declined due to an agreement entered into by the mother cooperative we assisted in establishing. This has led us to explore another buyer that may be give us a promising contract we truly deserve.
It was through Lapanday Foods Corporation’s contract implementation of the unfavourable 10 year Banana Sales Agreement and General Framework Farm Rehabilitation that ARBs experienced worst living condition. Contracts with banana buyers ideally are supposed to alleviate economic condition and credits given are meant to grant temporary fiscal relief to us poor farmers. Yet our then contract with Lapanday Foods Corporation did not serve this purpose.
The onerous contracts brokered by Lapanday Foods Corporation is an Agri-Business Ventures Agreement Scheme meant to extract excessive profits from farmers and leaves them in abysmal debt. Concretely, the LFC’s contract would accord the deduction from small farmers the amount of P4,500 twice monthly for farm inputs or production cost; unfair deduction to those who would earn more than P 20,000 monthly, receiving a meager take home pay of P2,000; in addition to the anomalous intentional downgrading of banana products that cost us great loss in our earnings, among others.
The basis of our intent to separate from HEARBCO 1 was grounded mainly on our refusal to continue to be tied up with such onerous agri-business agreement. Our refusal was also stemmed on the belief that some if not most PBGEA members could give us a better deal, fair and justified, so we could at least live decently. Also relying on the belief that some PBGEA members may not be short-sighted and will recognize our survival as a force integral to the banana industry.
Lapanday Foods Corporation’s disapproval of our actions and its retaliation did not leave us unscathed. In 2010, our members were fenced off from their land to stop them from harvesting their banana products. Swing gates passageway were locked up and farmers were refused entry to their property. They even filed a case against us following our refusal to sign a waiver allowing them to control the land we own. The support of the local government agencies to LFC in enforcing their demand then drove us away from the only source of living we knew.
Matters were even made worse by Lapanday Foods Corporation’s insistence on holding us accountable for a contract we never agreed to. LFC refused to address the fact that it was by means of a referendum-one democratic procedure that all of ARBs under HEARBCO 1 agreed upon and voted for whether we chose to remain in continuance of an unfair contract with our buyer or not. The result concluded our resolve to leave HEARBCO 1 in January 2011 while their contract with LFC was signed September of 2011.
The process we went through until the December 15, 2015 decision when MARBAI successfully obtained a favorable ruling from Jose Nilo Tillano, the Provincial Agrarian Reform Adjudiator of Davao Del Norte (PARAD), to reinstate our members to more than one hundred fifty (150) hectares lands located at San Roque, Tagum City was poignant. This legal mandate given to us reaffirmed the correct stand we to held on to at the expense of losing everything we had. Hopes for us small farmers became dimmer though when the agency failed to implement its ruling.
This on the other hand had taught us the important lesson of relying on each other’s strength within the organization. The formidable might of depending on our fellow poor farmers against any challenges or adversary that may come our way as we fight for our common basic interest.
Our group have been lavishing in the limelight these past few days for no other reason than our intention to gain back our livelihood by means of tilling the land legally mandated as our own. This happened at the extent of our fellow farmers getting hurt and our families traumatized. We did not expect we would reap such atrocities. We do not want such acts of violence. On the contrary, we acted and resorted to peaceful means till the very end even though our confidence in the judicial process to heed our demands remained futile.
Living in dire condition for years, it was only timely that in December 9, 2016, on the eve of the commemoration of the International Human Rights day, we had defended our rights by collectively reclaiming our land. Scars of life taught us to be self-reliant and depend on our united action to assert it through peaceful means as prescribed by our constitution. In fact, we had our men shirtless on that day to show we do not harbour ill-intention. No one among our ranks of poor peasants can afford a decent food on our tables much more a gun in an assembly.
We have no other motive than to assert our inalienable right to life.
We have no other means to do this except by ways prescribed by the law. We endured scarcity in resources and had adhere to legal procedures for six long painful years of legal rows, which left us exhausted, with lives lost and empty pockets. Yet this made us even more ardent in our struggle to gain back the land awarded to us. Fracases is the least of the things we wanted to engage in for it may jeopardize our claim. We are a group of farmers stripped off of our rights so it is a right we claimed. This is the meat of the matter.
A matter which Lapanday Foods Corporation continually tackled with cruelty and inhuman treatment of us. They even mercilessly sprayed us with pesticides moments after LFC’s guards open fired at us, contaminating our food and water.
Due to its spiteful treatment of us, we are anticipating that Lapanday Foods Corporation may accuse us of contacting other buyers and may suspect them of supporting us. They may maliciously insinuate that some of you would even assist us. Yet only PBGEA could attest to the certainty of these allegations. Our acts of cutting down banana trees in the 145 hectare land we owned the day after Lapanday Foods Corporation’s guards open fired at us, wounding 7 of our fellow farmers, could strongly debunk this suspicion. We only wanted our land back and start anew a good relation possibly with a decent buyer from among your ranks, and that’s about it.
We would like to stress that any malicious allegations against us by Lapanday Foods Corporation insinuating our interest over their banana products is actually an allegation address to PBGEA and possibly may entail mistrust and division within your membership which we are not in favor of.
We vehemently believe that PBGEA members bears individual bearing, wisdom and fair judgement to see our efforts as an act to help defuse any rip within the banana industry. Just like all the other ARBs disgruntled over onerous AVAs who came and support us and shared common sentiments and cause with us, to achieve lasting resolutions to land conflict, will only serve to boost the agricultural sector.
We appeal to you to recognize our struggle and support us as we rebuild our lives and be one with us as we slowly recover our livelihood and dignity. We are one in our purpose to strengthen the banana business for the farmers serve as the backbone of the banana industry.
Lastly, we strongly believe that PBGEA does not share the same views with LFC. For PBGEA is not LFC; a hope that we strongly cling on to brace the industry which our lives depended on.
Signed: Mely S. Yu
Chairperson
MARBAI Board of Trustees
