Bacolod City (Sept. 29 – Late Post) – In a province where life revolves around the growing and harvesting of sugarcane, there is a Time of Death, or Tiempo Muerto, for the farm workers and this is the time between the last farm activity which would be fertilisation to the time of harvest stretching from June to September every year.
For four months, families of sugarcane farm workers go through the excruciating pain and anguish of having to stretch whatever earnings they made during the months they had work or borrow money from loan sharks which they could hardly pay.
It is no wonder then that for a province with perhaps the most number of millionaires per capita, Negros Occidental still wallows in a 38% Poverty Incidence and a boiling countryside insurgency.
Farm workers are easily radicalised with many of them joining the restless Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas while others have banded under the Negros Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW).
When their leaders learned that I had a scheduled trip to Negros Occidental Sept. 28 and 29, they asked the regional officials of the Department of Agriculture who arranged my engagements in the province if they could meet with me and raise their concerns and “demands.”
On Friday, Sept. 29, the face-off was held at the provincial capitol where I and the officials of the Agriculture Department headed by Director Remelyn Recoter, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) led by newly-appointed Administrator Herminigildo Serafica and Director Rolando Beltran and the provincial government represented by the provincial agriculturist, Japhet Masculino. sat in one side of a square of tables with the militant worker leaders in three sides backed up by their members.
After my opening statement where I explained the desire of President Rody Duterte to reach out to all sectors of society, especially the poor, the group then read their “demands.”
That was when I set the parameters of the discussion by asking the workers leaders that I could not discuss about issues outside of my scope of work, like agrarian reform, their opposition to trade liberalisation and their position against the imposition of higher taxes.
“I will only talk about things which i could deliver, nothing else, because I might end up becoming a liar if I make promises that I cannot fulfil,” I told them.
I also emphasised that the word “demand” does not have a place in a dialogue and that we all should be open to negotiations.
After two hours of lively exchange, which surprisingly turned out to be very friendly rather than adversarial, we all agreed on the following:
1. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the SRA will support the farm workers by organising them into a service providers’ group who will own and manage a fleet of farm machineries and equipment – including tractors, trucks and harvesters which they would use in the farms of their former “masters.”
I told them that as equipment and machineries owners, they will be able to elevate themselves from mere workers to agri-entrepreneurs.
2. The DAF will provide them livelihood projects like raising native pigs and vegetable growing. It was agreed that in a month’s time, the Agriculture Dept. will deliver 60 heads of native pigs to serve as a multiplier farm which will produce piglets which in turn will be dispersed to other farm workers families.
The implementation of the project will be fast tracked so that in next year’s sugarcane off-season, they will have sources of income. Vegetable farming and mushroom culture will also be taught to the wives and daughters of the farm workers.
3. The DAF and SRA will print and distribute pamphlets which will explain the scholarship programs of government for the children of farmers and fisher folks and how their children could avail of it.
4. The DAF through the Agriultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) will open a credit facility to the farm workers to provide their access to loans with very low interest rates which they could use for other livelihood activities during the off-season for sugarcane farming.
The workers were given one month to submit the list of their members who will be involved in the farm machineries and equipment operations, in livelihood projects, in identifying their children who are interested to go to college and in selecting a cooperative which will handle the credit program.
The DAF and SRA officials, including the provincial government, were tasked to do their part in implementing the committed projects.
We all agreed to meet again after one month to report on our specific assignments.
At the end of the two-hour dialogue, we all posed for souvenir photos.
The militant workers raised their clenched fists while we in government did the Duterte fist pump.
Wherever was the direction of our fists, one thing was certain: Tiempo Muerto or the Time of Death for the lowly sugarcane workers of Negros will soon come to an end.
Tiempo Bueno or Better Time is forthcoming for the workers who have suffered for so long in poverty and hunger.
(Photos taken by Larry Nuestro, DA-AFID)
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