Focus on the Global South, with Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (SARA), aims to document land reform, land rights struggles, and post-land distribution accounts that have yet to find successful endings but can already show better beginnings for farmer-beneficiaries.
The first of this series of accounts/stories was about the farmers at Hacienda Luisita, which can be viewed at http://youtu.be/mvwe019V0hc and http://bit.ly/1cufPda.
The second stop, featured through a video documentation and article we now share with you, is at Hacienda Dolores, Porac, Pampanga, an agrarian hotspot and a scene of land grabbing and various human rights violations by real estate developers. In these interviews, farmer-beneficiaries at the Hacienda talk about their lives before the land grabbing and human rights violations, their current struggles, and aspirations and demands for reclaiming the lands.
The farmers, collectively organized under the Aniban ng Mamamayan ng Hacienda Dolores (Organization of Hacienda Dolores Citizens, or ANIBAN), are land rights claimants cultivating 761 hectares of productive agricultural lands. Their right to own the land is mandated and protected under the Philippine Government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Their ownership of the land should have been fulfilled as early as 1988, the year CARP was enacted.
Below is the video on “Agaw-Lupa” (Land Grab), tackling the woes and demands of the residents and farmers at the Hacienda. The video on “Hustisya” (Justice) which focuses on the human rights violations, in particular the criminalization of dissent and killing of farmer leaders in the area in the last two years, can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/1zIMC8y.
These videos were produced in partnership with KATARUNGAN and Task Force Hacienda Dolores.
