Sucre Ethique - Activist sugar worker murdered---human rights group

All voices - vendredi 9 juillet 2010

Negros Occidental, Philippines — Another labor leader, Benjamin Bayker, 44, was murdered last June 14, 2010 by alleged members of 61st Infantry Batallion Philippines Army

At around 4:30 pm, Bayles was with his friend waiting for public transport near the waiting shed in Sitio Antolo Bgy. Buenavista when a couple of unidentified men riding a Honda motorcycle stopped in front of the victim and using a .45 caliber pistol shot Bayles, the other man driving the vehicle also fixed shots at the victim.

On April 2010, Army soldiers belonging to the 11th IBPA encamped at the barangay center of Bgy. Buenavista. Witnesses say that since the last week of April, army soldiers had been asking the whereabouts and other pertinent information about Bayles.

Fighting for Land and Survival

Bayles, also known as Benjie, became an organizer of National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) beginning 2002. He took part in the long and arduous struggle for land and survival of the peasants and farm workers of Himamaylan City in Negros. Bayles is also an active human rights defender and facilitates campaigns of Karapatan Negros. He is also the treasurer of a local chapter of Bayan Muna.

The NFSW is an organization of farm workers established in 1971 to counter the many “yellow” farm organizations and create a force that will genuinely forward the interests of the toiling class.

Negros Peasant-Worker Leaders Under Attack

Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) Executive Director Daisy Arago points out that Baylen’s assassination demonstrate the relentless attack on Negros peasant and labor leaders as well as the entire movement in Negros pushing for genuine agrarian reform and social justice.

Baylen is the 11th NFSW who became victim of extrajudicial killings since 2001. “Clearly there is a an overt campaign against organizations and sectors that uphold and fight true land reform,” Arago expressed.

Other than the killings, NFSW members also faced a slew of criminal charges. More than 300 criminal cases were filed against NFSW members while 83 warrants of arrests have been issued against the farm workers that came from various haciendas.

“This criminalization of Negros [farm] workers,” Arago added, “is also part of the large scheme of deterring people’s organizations who has legitimate demands from the government and the landowners. It is still part of the legal offensives against purported communists and the notorious anti-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya or OBL.”

“But what must be clearly understood is that victims [of EJKs and criminalization] are not mere political activists in the sense that they adhere to certain political or ideoligical beliefs. Organizations such as NFSW fight for their right to own and till the land. Land dispute and economic injustice is the fundamental issue here. And this should not be addressed by the government not by annihilating the people who seek to live decently but by providing the needed reforms to end social injustice,” Arago furthers.

Poverty and Struggle

Negros is an island known for it vast lands dominated mostly sugar-producing haciendas whose history dates back in the era of Spaniards colonization. To date, the island despite its rich and fertile land is considered one of the poorest in the Philippines. Extreme poverty and high incidents of malnutritution is largely attribute to the sacada system of farming. Theaverage family income is of P73 923 per annum (2000 data). Even the urban centers such as Bacolod City face the problem of ballooning informal settlers and unemployment. About 70% of the population are either unemployed or have no stable jobs.

Farm workers from NFSW however have learned to struggle their way to survive and resist continued oppression. They launched the land cultivation campaign wherein farmers tilled the land which were supposedly subjected to land distribution. Hacienderos continue to question the decision to distribute the land and in past prevent the farmers from planting crops in contested areas. In order to deter the farmers from their successful land cultivation campaign, they slapped the peasants mostly from NSFW with the trumped-up criminal cases.#