Christmas Presentation 2008

You know it’s Christmas when each nuclear family of the de la Cruz clan gets all competitive and intense. It’s time for the annual de la Cruz Christmas presentation — that cutthroat competition I’ve written about here and here, complete with pictures.

In 2006, we came as Disney characters and emerged the grand prize winners.

Last year, the theme was COUNTRIES, and we came as Vietnam, hoping to kick everyone’s asses with our Miss Saigon grand production number (complete with “helicopter” ha!). We lost.

This year, the theme was MOVIES. Saddled by the preparations of my brother’s wedding, we made do with what we had and chose the one movie we three kids knew by heart:

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC…

Find your Christmas Quiet

In a world with corners ever creaking, spinning endlessly in a fever of movement, I wish for you and those you love the chance to find your Christmas quiet.

I have found mine one quiet brunch in the company of very old friends, sitting at a coffee shop and laughing at our College pictures with baggy jeans and Rachel-Green haircuts.

Or one late night with law school friends, shrieking with excitement over a friend’s announcement that she and her boyfriend have, after twelve years, decided to finally tie the knot.

Or spending a few hours in Star City with my favorite person.

Or enjoying a quiet Noche Buena with my family, the last family dinner we will have before one of us gets married, and laughing at the same ancient jokes and the same worn-out punchlines.

Because I am loved by the people I love, I know I am blessed far more than I deserve.  And because I am blessed, there is no noise that can faze me. 

Wishing you a love and gratitude-filled Christmas. 

Power

Now I know what power is.

For the past year or so, we have been working steadily on getting the CARP Extension with Reforms Bill passed. As early as two years ago, we agrarian reform advocatres were already coming together for meetings to discuss the substantial features of the Bill that was supposed to extend funding for CARP after it expires in December of this year, and incorporate reforms that would be, for once, true articulations of the problems on the ground. Personally, I remember my special lobby for the provision that would prevent the criminalization of agrarian reform cases, a nod to my friends in Bondoc Peninsula.

I can’t remember the number of meetings we’ve had, the long hours we spent making sure that each line in the bill was written perfectly, the consultations we’ve had to make sure that we involve farmers in the process of crafting, the months we spent lobbying and watching developments in Congress and Senate, the materials we churned out and the studies we made to prove that small farms are viable, that compulsory acquisition is most effective in poverty reduction, etc etc, the efforts we took to bring the farmers from the provinces to the capital so that their voices may be heard.

All because we were foolish enough to believe that faith and hard work were all it took to make a difference.

On December 17, 2008, we were proven wrong. All our efforts were razed to the ground by a Congress and a Senate that decided to kill Agrarian Reform by removing Compulsory Acquisition. This is not a mere inclusion of an anti-farmer amendment, or an exemption of certain types of land, this is wholesale murder. Without Compulsory Acquisition, Agrarian Reform is nothing. Anyone who thinks that the landowners in Negros, where the undistributed lands are, would give up their lands voluntarily has got to be severely delusional.

And as Satur and the Bayan Muna/Anakpawis/Gabriela consortium continue to take the moral high ground, it must be made known that they were complicit in killing CARP. How dare they now complain over the newspapers that Mikey Arroyo killed CARP, when they were part of that murder? Ask any farmer who was there in Congress from December 15-17 and who stood outside the gates. Ask them about the Bayan Muna rallyists bearing “IBASURA ANG CARP”  placards, screaming their heads off at the farmers and bishops on Hunger Strike. Why were the “NO TO CARP” hakot crowd able to enter the gallery? Because their entry was supposedly  facilitated by CONGRESSMAN FERRER (known landowner congressman) and the offices of the Bayan Muna/Gabriela/Anakpawis gang.

The plain and simple truth is that every single step of the way, on the issue of CARP, the Arroyos of Negros, Pampanga and Bicol; landowners Garcia, Villafuerte, Maranon and Ferrer, as well as so-called Leftists Ocampo, Maza, Ilagan, Casino, Mariano VOTED AGAINST THE EXTENSION OF THE COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAM.

I cried immediately after the voting ended around 12mn on December 17, my chest hurting just thinking about all our areas without notices of coverage yet, and all our farmers who were no longer to benefit from Agrarian Reform. At 2am, I got a text from MeAnne from Focus, the horrible implications had sunk in her two hours after the fact. In the coming days, other agrarian reform advocates would find themselves in tears, realizing that without a doubt, agrarian reform is dead. Felled by the powerful and the rich.

On Wednesday, December 17, our good Senators and Congressmen have managed to decimate an entire class. Such power indeed.

Hunger for Land, Hunger for Justice

I was at the meeting last night where Bishop Pabillo decided — above the objections of civil society members who were concerned for his welfare and apprehensive about his chosen mode — to go on hunger strike to call for the passage of the CARP Extension with Reform Law. At first, I too was voicing my apprehension over his decision. If it did not work, if Congress would not budge, what will happen?  But seeing his determination, we knew that a decision had been made and the times had imposed upon us a duty to come together as one and support it.

I would be the first to admit that I am incapable of doing a hunger strike. Skipping just one meal a day makes me grouchy and makes my head hurt. That is why I have nothing but deep respect and admiration for a man who made the difficult decision to take this mode of protest.

After twenty years, the agrarian reform law is once more on the threshold of uncertainty. Without a new law, funding for land acquisition and distribution is set to expire. After December 31, 2008, the DAR will no longer be granted funds to continue the process of redistribution. After December 31, 2008, farmers who do not own the land they till will have no more hope of owning it. After December 31, 2008, yet undistributed landholdings will never go to the farmers and will forever be held by the original landowners.

Last week, on Wednesday, landed congressmen floated a new proposal, said to be their quid pro quo for passing the law: take away COMPULSORY ACQUISITION. My head spun upon hearing this. Without the compulsory nature of agrarian reform, agrarian reform is dead.

Agrarian reform is precisely the act of a State exercising its power to break up elite interests over huge landholdings, even amidst opposition of a self-interested few. Without compulsory acquisition, the Constitutional mandate of agrarian reform is rendered nugatory and the gains that can still be expected shall no longer be reaped.

 It also bears emphasizing that most of the lands yet undistributed are located in agrarian reform hotspots, where landowner resistance has resulted not only in non-redistribution but also in oppression and outright violence. If they have succeeded in retaining their lands under a legal regime where compulsory acquisition is worded into the law, it is sheer foolishness to expect them to give up their lands when acquisition and distribution is at their option.

Brother Utoy, who I know only online and because he stumbled on my blog, tagged me to write a prayer for the next President. I had been putting off doing this because I was not really in 2010 mode, and admittedly see little hope in the leadership of this country.

My only prayer is this: that finally, finally, they be put first.

And that the day would finally come when no one — whether bishop or farmer — would need to go on hunger strike so that no farmer in the countryside would ever have to go hungry again.