Velez: A death in October

JIMMY Saypan thought he could chase away death.

This farmer activist did that a year ago, when he spotted a man trying to pull a gun at him and he chased him off.

Last Monday morning, October 10, while riding his motorcycle in Montevista, Compostela Valley, he chased motorcycle-riding gunmen who shot him in the stomach while he was driving his motorcycle.

He thought death and its harbingers can be chased away with guts. He also thought courage can defy the soldiers who have been driving him and other farmers away from their lands in Compostela for the mining firm Agusan Petroleum Corporation owned by tycoon Danding Cojuangco.

That thought is true. But courage also comes with a price.

On Tuesday afternoon, Jimmy Saypan, secretary general of the Compostela Farmers Association, succumbed to that fatal wound in his stomach in the hospital.

His death comes on October when we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ month.

Jimmy is a Mandaya farmer.

His death comes at a time when the Duterte government is making changes to empower the farmers, by putting teeth to agrarian reform, increasing farm subsidies, protecting their lands by suspending mining permits, and enacting a joint ceasefire with the Reds for the peace talks.

Yet, the killings of farmers continue. There is the case of farmer leader Arnel Figueroa in Coron, Palawan killed by private security of the Yulo ranch last September which is subjected to agrarian reform. This Thursday, another farmer in Comval, Anoy Pasaporte, was shot dead in Mabini.

This shows that not all is attuned to the call for change, and it is not just the online trolls or the opposition in the Senate. The reality is, we are still in a country of contradiction, between the haves and the have-nots, the landed against the peasantry, Lumads and Moro.

For the past two years, Jimmy and other leaders of the CFA lobbied with the local government of Compostela and Comval to protect the farmers from both the military and Agpet.

The CFA claims local leaders received election campaign contributions from Agpet and were thus reluctant to support their causes.

It is still a class struggle, a Lumad struggle, a farmer’s fight for land and life such as Jimmy’s that still burns in this country. And this is a struggle that continues until we chase all those harbingers of our death away.

* * *

These deaths and struggles reminds us of the fifth death anniversary of Italian missionary Fr. Fausto "Pops" Tentorio of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions on October 17. Five years has passed yet justice for Fr. Pops remains elusive.

During a gathering of the Fr. Pops’ Foundation, his colleague Fr. Peter Geremia remembered it took the late DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo to act on this case four years ago. Yet the Justice Department under then Secretary Leila de Lima failed to pursue the prosecution against the perpetrators.

Reflecting on the sacrifice of Pops, he said that in history there is the story of Cain and Abel. Abel acted and thought for the good, while Cain has been filled with jealousy and hate.

But Fr. Peter said many of the victims of injustice are also acting now to help bring justice, and thus, their healing. That somehow reflects the state of our struggles between the marginalized and the landed.

Let the healing continue.

tyvelez@gmail.com

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph