Home | To bottom

Living through immortality in Hacienda Luisita

November 16, 2005. Exactly a year has passed since the picket line in the Hacienda Luisita had been established. A year had passed. Thirteen lives had been taken. The worker-farmers (manggagawang-bukid) strengthen their struggle. Organizing. Mobilizing. Continuing.

Blinding comfort

When I was born, my parents opted to live with my mother’s family in Taytay, Rizal, a modernizing suburb in the outskirts of Metro Manila. Growing up with my parents and grandparents, our life was comfortable enough to afford some expensive pizza for a mere midnight snack. We were at that ease, until my father told us that we have to build our own house and put up an advertising shop in Tarlac. Reluctantly, my sister and I had to bid our friends goodbye, say ‘So long’ to our schoolmates.

I then spent almost half my life in the rural town of Pura, Tarlac. Even at the age of 9, I already discriminated life in the province. So backward and simple. My mother enrolled me and my sister in a Montessori school in Tarlac City. Some students there reminded me of my friends back ‘home’. That was then I decided to give it a shot.

Most of the students in that school belonged to families with lucrative major businesses. I had friends who owned a major construction firm, a Shell franchise, a Levi’s franchise, several rice mills, whom had an irrigation-system administrator for a father. Name it, all the merchandise, they have it. Being with the elite of Tarlac, I feel that I shared an imaginary community of rubbing elbows with Tarlac’s richest of rich.

In high school, all we do is hang around malls, stroll around Hacienda Luisita. My friend’s father was a cardholder of Luisita’s golf course. So we could go in and out of Luisita’s clubhouse whenever.

Only after college that I would see through the blinding comfort Hacienda Luisita has provided me.

Unfortunate revelation

I already graduated from college last year, when in November, the Hacienda Luisita farmers put on a strike. They put a picket line right at the gates of Central Azucarera de Tarlac. All they wanted was to augment their meager salary of P9.50 a day. They lobbied for a better collective bargaining agreement (CBA). More than hunger and sweat, their struggle took their blood, took lives of their co-militants.

November 16, 2004. Hacienda Luisita massacre. The national media depicted it as if it was a spectacular carnival of opposing forces throwing water and stones at each other. Seven strikers died. Jhavie Basilio, Jun David, Juancho Sanchez, Jesus Laza, Jaime Pastidio, Adriano Caballero and Jessie Valdez- the first seven martyrs of Hacienda Luisita.

The killings did not stop. People slaughtered were Alyansa ng Magbubukid ng Tarlac chairperson Marcelino Beltran (December 8, 2004); Tarlac City Councilor Abelardi Ladera (March 3, 2005); Aglipayan priest Fr. William Tadena (March 13); peasant leader Ben Concepcion (March 17); Bayan Muna provincial general Florante Collantes (October 15). The latest murder last October 25 took on Ricardo Ramos, barangay chairperson of Mapalacsiao and president of Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU).

Continued physical and psychological harassment occur as if commonplace to the members of the Hacienda Luisita picket line. Disheartening yet it is a reality.

Memento Mori (Remembering the dead)

It was 6:30 in the morning when representatives of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Cordillera, ORNUS, Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Tanghalang Bayan ng Kabataan sa Baguio, League of Filipino Students, Anakbayan, and Northern Dispatch took on the road down Tarlac. We were to participate in Hacienda Luisita picket line’s first year anniversary. It was not something to celebrate. It’s as if we were to flashback what happened in the massacre; hear, see and feel how the people there continue their plight.

At around 11:30 am, sympathetic people and the CATLU stewards themselves assembled to pose a mobilization in front of the Northern Luzon Command’s (NOLCOM) base- Camp Servillano Aquino. It was home to General Jovito Palparan of the 7th Infantry Division, the ‘butcher of Central Luzon’.

Speakers adamantly expressed their struggle against the military attacks against their ranks. Emotions rise up when a dispersal team of more than 20 military men faced the militants. Instead of backing out, agitated people executed a die-in symbol of protest. As people lied down, with their placards and flags underneath them, it was hard not to feel more sympathetic to them. The people are one in condemning the discourteous treatment they get just because they articulate their appropriate needs.

To avoid any more possible harassment, the militants marched back to their picket line. A program was then to take place moments after they recuperated.

Various organizations from Manila, the Cordilleras, Aurora and some towns of Southern Tagalog conveyed their concern and compassion for what the CATLU and United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) members come across. The sun was to set but never their enduring hope for justice.

Family members and co-workers of the slain CATLU and ULWU stewards and organizers dedicated read-throughs of their fulfilling lives. They were commemorated as martyrs. Martyrs to live all the way through their struggle.

Jack, a 14-year-old member of the Samahan ng Kabataang Demokratiko sa Acienda Luisita (Sakdal), performed a very much heartfelt poem entitled “Imortalidad”. Her poem explicitly details what their fathers and forefathers fight for. It goes,

Sa lamlam ng dapit-hapon ay ating ihatid ang ating mga kasama
Sila’y ating ihatid sa imortalidad.
Tulad ng mga bayaning nauna sa kanila
Ang kanilang katawan ay nasa ibabaw ng ating kalasag.
Ang kanilang medalya’y hindi ginto ni pilak
Ang kanilang medalya’y mga sariwang sugat na inagusan ng ating dugo.
Hindi tayo tumatangis, hindi nagdurusa
Sapagkat sila’y isang martir ng dakilang krusada
Dinala nila sa paa ng bundok Golgotta ang matapang na krus ng pakikibaka
Laban sa imperyalismo, burukrata kapitalismo, pyudalismo, pasismo.
Maari nilang paslangin ang buhay ng isang estudyante
Lurayin ang mabangong bulaklak ng kabataan ng lahi.
Kit’lin ang buhay ng isang libong manggagawa
Isang libong magsasaka.
Subalit ang bayan ay walang maliw, ang bayan ay walang hanggan.
Mga kasama at iba pang martir ng dakilang demokrasya
Mga biktima ng rehimeng pasista.
Buhay ng inyong kaluluwa, buhay ng inyong pag-asa sa aming pag-asa.
*[Di kayo mamamatay
Di kayo malilimot.
Sa puso ng sambayanan ay tatayo ang bantayog
Tinig niyo’y maririnig]
Sa lahat ng dako’t sulok
Nangangalit na lintik
Dumadagundong na kulog.
Isang higanteng magbabalikwas
Ang paa’y sa Gitnang Luzon, ang ulo’y sa Sierra Madre
(*)Sa buong sansinukob
Makibaka, wag matakot
Hanggang sa pagsasamantala’y mabuwal at madurog.

The lines reach more than the ears. Tears well up sad, yet determined eyes. Hearts end up with more faith in their own people. The audience ruptured with a resounding cry of “Mabuhay ang Hacienda Luisita!”

“We hold the Cojuangco-Aquino family, the Arroyo government and NOLCOM, particularly Palparan, responsible for the recent and future attacks on the people of Luisita. We condemn the emergence of the sate fascism in its crudest, most barbaric form not only in Hacienda Luisita but in the rest of the country. In the face of the current dangers and hardships, we vow to pursue our struggle. We are confident that in the future, those who have committed crimes against the people will be meted justice they deserve,” Ka Rene Galang concludes.

Ironic eve

November 14, 2005. At 3A.M. Barangay Balete’s picket line was burned down. Eleven striking workers were illegally abducted, hit with steel tubes and gun butts. It was a warrantless arrest and no legitimate case was filed against them, they were already inflicted with injuries and illegal detention. They were recklessly punched and kicked by soldiers in Barangay Balete.

According to Ka Brando David, resident of Brgy. Balete, one soldier even said, “Ipunin nyo yang mga kahoy, panggatong pag namatay si Rodel (Galang).” It was a comment they could never forget, Brgy. Captain Ric Ramos just died and a threat of taking the life of their own brgy. captain was amidst them. Arnold Cunan, 37, and Marilou Ricardo, 29, were subsequently falsely charged with illegal possession of firearms. Ka Brando refutes the soldiers’ statement. They only had gulok, (butcher’s knives) as it was a necessity for gathering some wood for their cooking, and other chores.

November 15, 2005. Eve of the Hacienda Luisita massacre. Ricardo Flores and Henry Garcia, both from Barangay Balete again, were manhandled and punched by soldiers led by Sgt. Dennis Mendoza.

“Lahat ng welgista, may pangalan sa Order of Battle (OB-NOLCOM). Pati mga pamilya ng mga nagwewelga. Pinapasok sa bahay. Pinagbibintangang mga NPA (New Peoples’ Army). Paano mangyayari yun, ilang taon na kaming nakatira dito? Isang taon na kaming nagwewelga, hindi naman kami umaalis,” Ka Brando shared.

According to the press statement of ULWU as headed by President Rene Galang, the latest incidents are an attempt to criminalize the legitimate struggle of the workers and the people of the hacienda. After the harassment, the NOLCOM had the boldness to file cases against their victims.

Reality sinks in

Children aged 6 and above did not only play around the makeshift houses of the strikers. They did not just sing, eat junk food and whine to their striker-parents. Living in the picket line almost made them grow like an adult in an overnight. One 6-year-old girl shouts, “Tuloy ang laban! Tuloy ang welga!” with full understanding. And I understood too.

The experience was not only an eye-opener. It was a reality situationer. Flashbacks of my bourgeois teenage years all came back to me shamefully. Every time I would pass by Luisita, I would never look at it the same way ever again. # Pink-Jean Fangon Melegrito for NORDIS

Home | Back to top