Philippines: Right to food of 6,212 farmers threatened despite the issuance of land titles

Beginning of Action: 19 February 2014  End of Action: 17 April 2014

After a decades-long struggle for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, the farmworker beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita were finally awarded land titles – the Certificates of Land Ownership Awards by the Department of Agrarian Reform in October 2013. Despite having obtained the land titles, the farmworker beneficiaries are still unable to cultivate the awarded land in order to exercise their right to adequate food. This is in part due to: the slow ground survey by the Department of Agrarian Reform needed to identify boundaries between the lots to be given to each individual farmworker beneficiary; the existing informal contracts with middlemen/middlewomen to whom the farmworkers have rented land to grow sugar cane; and the lack of social protection measures and support services in order to make the awarded land productive after the completion of the land distribution.

This case needs your URGENT ACTION, by writing to the Filipino government to demand them to immediately install farmworkers in their land and provide essential support services and social protection measures to the farm beneficiaries and their families to ensure their right to food.

ACTION
Please write to the Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform, with a copy to the President of the Philippines and the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, requesting them to meet the necessary measures in order to guarantee the right to food of the farm beneficiaries and their families.

Please inform FIAN if you receive a response to your letters.

Pls see sample letter @ www.fian.org

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