BEACAUSE of extreme hunger and poverty, farmers from as far as Mindanao are forced to work in sugarcane plantations in Luzon only to earn a paltry P10 a day, the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) said on Thursday.
The situation, UMA Secretary- General Danilo Ramos said, depicts the dire situation of landless farmers in Mindanao, who are easily lured by manpower agencies with the promise of good pay and working condition, only to end up as “slaves” in sugar plantations.
In particular, Ramos said Hacienda Luisita Inc. employs plantation workers for a measly pay, contrary to what the farmers were promised, a situation that, he said, they heard of more than a decade ago.
Ramos urged the Duterte administration to look into the situation of Mindanao farmers who continue to work under such dire conditions, citing the case of 58- year-old Mario Bagnaran.
Mario is among the first batch of sacadas to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) against the recruiter, Greenhand, and the principal employer, Agrikulto Inc. and Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT).
Agrikulto and CAT are now jointly owned and managed by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan, led by Fernando Cojuangco with Martin Lorenzo, a scion of the Lorenzo landlord family who is also currently embroiled in land disputes with farmers in banana plantations under Lapanday Foods Corp. in Mindanao.
A farmworker in pineapple plantations in Maramag, Bukidnon, Mario decided to accompany fellow workers from his barangay recruited by Greenhand Labor Service Cooperative for a “livelihood project” in Tarlac last November.
A few minutes after leaving the NLRC office, he received an urgent call and was told that his elder brother, Brixcio Sr. 64, had died of the illness he contracted from working in Hacienda Luisita. His nephew, Brixcio’s Junior, was still in Tarlac, waiting to be “rescued”.
Mario is among the 43 sacadas from Bukidnon who decided to leave Hacienda Luisita only two months into their supposed work contract.
They were assisted by the national office of the UMA through communications from a local farmworkers’ union in Bukidnon, the Organisasyon sa Yanong Obrerong Nagkahiusa (OGYON).
Ramos said the sacadas also are victims of human trafficking.
Among the sacadas “rescued” last December 25 to 31 are four minors, while 24 others are indigenous people, or lumad, who belong to the Manobo tribe.
Junior and eight other sacadas finally had the chance to leave Hacienda Luisita.
They had been camping out in the sugarcane fields for days, because they refused to go back to their bunkhouse. After they saved enough for their fare to Manila, they went straight where the others sought temporary shelter.
According to Ramos, as early as August last year, the recruiters from Greenhand, headed by a certain Billy Baitus based in Polomolok, South Cotabato, said it was already milling season in Tarlac.
With Mindanao still reeling from the dry spell and sugar plantations in Bukidnon have yet to escape from the curse of tiempo muerto, or dead season, the recruiters were able to convince a group of farmers to accept the “job offer”.
The workers were promised wages higher than the rates in Bukidnon, a province also known for its sugarcane plantations and mills.
The recruiters said they were to be housed in a hotel very near a hospital, so that all their medical needs would be properly attended to. They would have free provisions and benefits. Transportation to and from Hacienda Luisita would also be free. They will get a cash advance that they could leave with their families.
Mario went to Hacienda Luisita last November with five other men with the Bagnaran family name.
Instead of a hotel, however, they were housed in a cramped bunkhouse owned by the Cojuangco firm Agrikulto Inc., with hundreds of other sacadas from different Mindanao provinces.
However, instead of what was promised, everything in the house had to be paid for. Evem kitchen supplies and work tools were deducted from their measly pay.
“They had to work even before first light, and they were hauled back to the bunkhouse late afternoon, when it become too dark for them to cut cane,” Ramos lamented.
Paid based on pakyaw, or group rates, that could yield slave wages averaging only P180 each week, Ramos said some of the workers complained that one payroll even revealed that they earned only P66.21 from December 5 to 13, or equivalent to only P9.46 per day of hard work.
Mario’s elder brother Brixcio Sr. contracted a lung illness en route to Hacienda Luisita and was not able to work in the fields.
He was finally brought to a clinic, but was only given analgesics to ease his condition.
Brixcio Sr. was made to stay in the bunkhouse for a month, before the supervisors were finally convinced that he must be sent home immediately if they would not allow him proper medical care.
Brixcio Sr. died on Wednesday in Bukidnon.
“We could not send any money home, we did not even earn enough for our daily sustenance,” Mario complained during a press conference at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), where the “rescued” plantation workers aired their grievances.
The group would soon be going back to Mindanao with the help of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), after UMA sought the help of Secretary Judy Taguiwalo. According to Ramos, Taguiwalo promised to enroll the farmers from Mindanao under the agency’s “Balik-Probinsya Program,” being among the poorest of the poor.
“For the meantime, they would be camping inside the DAR. He said the farmers are hoping to personally appeal to DAR Secretary Rafael Mariano,” Ramos said.
The Mindanao farmers are landless and are all qualified to become awardees of government land under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
According to Ramos, the only way for exploitation of agricultural plantations on poor farmers is for the government to provide them land through its land-transfer program, and support for them to sustain agricultural production on their own.
“This despicable practice of exploiting sacadas for the kabyaw season has long been uninterrupted in Hacienda Luisita. The hiring of sacadas who are made to endure slave-like conditions and wages is one of the worst forms of exploitation and contractualization, technically legalized and tolerated by government for years,” said Ramos.
“Government cannot make true its promise to end contractualization if the most horrible conditions we’ve seen in sugarcane plantations here in Hacienda Luisita and in the whole of Negros Island still exist,” Ramos said.