Farmers March In Remembrance of 1987 Massacre

Farmers and left-wing activists - numbering thousands - burned an effigy of GMA (President Arroyo) and chanted for justice on Friday, 22 January 2010, according to the Washington Post. The march commemorated the 1987 Mendiola massacre, when soldiers gunned down 13 protestors demanding land reform. No on has been charged for the killings to date.

A year after the Mendiola massacre, late President Cory Aquino signed a law to redistribute land to tenant farmers, but the law contained a provision that exempted large landholdings. It is worth noting that a third of PH's 90 million people are poor, many of them landless farmers.

Demonstrators claimed that 560 farmers lives have been killed since GMA took office in 2001. Besides seeking justice for the deaths, activists also pressed for agrarian reform, including redistribution of land owned by wealthy and influential families. Bayan, a left-wing alliance, called for political candidates of the May 2010 elections to implement reform.

Rep. Liza Masa, who participated in the protest, said: "We cannot have social justice in our country as long as landlords still hold large tracts of land, and the farmers continue to be dispossessed of their land."

Full article.