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Philippine climate group condemns farmer leader killing

Arnel Figueroa shot dead while trying to stop officials driving farmers off disputed land
Philippine climate group condemns farmer leader killing

This April 1, 2016 photo shows a wounded farmer being treated after clashes between police and drought-hit farmers protesting over a lack of food, on a highway in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. Activists on Sept. 26 condemned the killing of farmer’s leader Arnel Figueroa who was shot by a security guard while trying to talk to government officials over a disputed piece of land in Coron, in Palawan province on Sept. 20. (Photo by AFP) 

Published: September 26, 2016 09:30 AM GMT
Updated: September 26, 2016 09:31 AM GMT

A church-backed climate justice group in the Philippines has condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the killing of a peasant leader in the resort town of Coron in Palawan province.

Arnel Figueroa, 44, leader of a local farmers' group, was shot dead by a security guard of the Bureau of Animal Industry on Sept. 20.

The farmer was trying to talk with government officials who were driving off farmers from a contested government property when he was shot.

"We call on the [authorities] to render swift justice ... and bring to the bar of justice all who conspired in the murder," read a statement by the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines (CCCP).

For six years, Figueroa had been leading a campaign to claim a piece of land on which the farmers had planted rice, sweet potatoes, bananas, and coconut trees.

In a statement released on Sept. 26, the CCCP, a peasant alliance convened by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro, called on the government to "provide assistance and compensation to the families and victims of violence."

The group urged authorities to "curb the violence against the [agrarian reform] petitioners." 

 

Contested land

The contested piece of land in the town of Coron is part of a 40,000-hectare government property that was declared as pasture land in 1975 by former president Ferdinand Marcos.

In 1986, the property was sequestered by the government and was placed under the Bureau of Animal Industries.

In March 2010, the Philippine Supreme Court lifted the sequestration order and transferred the management of the property to the Philippine Forest Corp. 

In 2013 President Benigno Aquino transferred control of the property to the Department of the Environment.

Some 12,000 hectares of the property have been declared as "alienable and disposable," and at least 1,000 hectares had already been distributed to farmers who had been tilling it since 2009.

Since 2010, the farmers led by Figueroa have been lobbying for the distribution of 2,000 more hectares of land to landless peasants under the government's agrarian reform program.

The administration of former president Aquino failed on a promise to distribute some 620,000 hectares of prime agricultural land when his term ended last June.

"We cry for justice. The farmers are not pigs, they are human beings," read the CCCP statement signed by Archbishop Ledesma.

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