SALINLAHI Alliance for Children’s Concerns strongly condemned the massacre of nine farmers, including four women and two minors, in Hacienda Nene, Purok Pine Tree, Barangay Bulanon, Sagay City in Negros Occidental on Oct. 20. The victims were members of National Federation of Sugar Workers.

The massacre happened in light of the massive land grabbing and land use conversion while peasants and hacienda workers continue to push for a genuine agrarian reform and their right to till their lands. In this struggle of peasants and farm workers, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and private armies of the landlords continue to harass, threaten and kill them.

Children in Negros work in haciendas together with their families because of poverty due to government’s neglect to heed their calls for land reform. More so, exploitation of child labor in Negros island proliferates because landlords find children’s labor very cheap. Children were given as low as P80 per day working in haciendas without any kind of benefits or subsidies. Landlords maintain this slave-like conditions of farm workers, including children, because they benefit from their exploitation and oppression, said Eule Rico Bonganay, secretary general of Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns, citing their research on May 2018.

Salinlahi reiterated that because genuine land reform is never happening in a tyrannical regime, fascism is the solution of the Duterte government.

The group called for public vigilance and support while supporting the demands and calls of peasants and their children. - Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns