Farmers and other groups march as they call for land reform for Peasant Month. Photo: Jonathan Cellona / ABS-CBN News
Hundreds of farmers and multi-sectoral groups staged a protest at Liwasang Bonifacio before marching to Mendiola Peace Arch on Tuesday, Oct. 21, to denounce government corruption and call for agrarian reform.
The protesters paraded an effigy of a bloated sewage rat to symbolize corruption and decay, likening corrupt officials to pests feeding on taxpayers’ money.
At Mendiola, they tore apart an effigy of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. portrayed as a rat, using sickles marked with calls for land reform.
The rally marked the culmination of a week-long peasant protest that began on Wednesday, Oct. 15, where farmers, fisherfolk, women, and indigenous peoples camped out in front of the Department of Agriculture (DA) to protest land grabbing, land-use conversion, and displacement in rural communities.
Luning Trinidad, a farmer from Hacienda Luisita, said agricultural lands continue to be converted for commercial use while military forces are deployed to intimidate residents defending their rights to land and livelihood.
Meanwhile, the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women joined the march, condemning what they described as the “US-Marcos regime” for systemic corruption and neglect of the agricultural sector.
“As we march today against Marcos, we demand an end to his systemic corruption and the change of this rotten system. His crimes against farmers continue to pile up including the stealing of public funds while denying land and livelihood rights. Farmers and peasant women are under attack, and the countryside is being bombed,” said Cathy Estavillo, Amihan Secretary General.
Organizers said the protest also denounced the alleged misuse of public funds in flood control projects that have affected the livelihood of farmers.
The march ended at Mendiola in the afternoon after the tearing of the effigy.