Ang agrikultura ay dapat na nagpapatibay sa ating bansa, pero bakit parang palaging nasa huli ang mga magsasaka?

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On March 24-28, farmers from Central Luzon gathered at the Department of Agrarian Reform in Quezon City to assert their rightful claim to land and justice. However, the fight for farmers’ rights does not end after a week. HEIGHTS Ateneo stands with peasant women and farmers in their collective action against long-running systemic problems. 

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For decades, farmers have been displaced from their land and livelihood through land-use conversion projects that prioritize profit over people. “Para na tayong squatter sa sarili nating lupa—na ang mga malalaking negosyante at foreigners ang may-ari,” expressed Zen Soriano, National Chairperson of Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women. As large corporations build more subdivisions, malls, and other establishments to expand their wealth,  agricultural lands shrink, and so do farmers’ means to survive. 

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Peasant women, in particular, bear the heaviest burden and are directly affected by landlessness. They are half of the production force in working the land and planting and harvesting crops. They are also the primary caretakers of the home and family. Many peasant women experience discrimination and abuse, as well as sexual harassment from the military that occupies their communities. Even as they lead movements against those injustices, peasant women remain among the most exploited and oppressed sectors in the Philippines.

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For these reasons, peasant women fight for their right to till the land.  However, they are wrongfully treated as terrorists. State forces attack them with illegal arrests, red-tagging, and even death. Counter-insurgency policies such as Memorandum Order 32 in Negros in Bicol, Executive Order 70, and the Anti-Terror Law have only intensified these attacks, silencing women who dare speak out for their rights. The government brands them as insurgents while failing to address the very conditions that push them to organize. Peasant women are not terrorists. They are mothers, daughters, and Filipinos fighting for their right to live with dignity.

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Despite these injustices, peasant women stand their ground. They fight for a future where land belongs to those who till it, where their labor is valued, and where fear does not dictate survival. Their struggle does not just concern themselves, but it also concerns every household that relies on local farmers for food, every worker whose livelihood is tied to agriculture, and every Filipino who refuses to accept a system that allows those who feed the nation to go hungry.

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Standing in solidarity with peasant women means rejecting policies that criminalize dissent and perpetuate a cycle of displacement. Militarization, landlessness, and economic exploitation must end. The bombing of peasant communities must stop. Genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization must take priority. The struggle of peasant women is a fight for food, land, and a future where farmers are recognized with dignity, not dispossession.

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As the Global Day of the Landless (March 29) nears the end of Women’s Month, HEIGHTS Ateneo calls for an end to systemic landlessness and for the government to uphold the rights and welfare of farmers. They must be given support and subsidy as the food security frontlines of the country. Agricultural land must not give way to destructive private businesses that benefit only the very few. Peasant women must no longer be forced to fight for the basic right to survive.

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In the end, the fight of peasant women is the fight of all who believe in the right to basic human rights.

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