We joined farmers, peasant women, indigenous people and representatives from other sectors at the protest at the Department of National Defense on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, against the military’s persistent and intensifying bombing. We stressed the destructive impact of bombings on the lives and livelihood of peasants and indigenous people and the urgency of pulling troops out of the countryside.
Military presence is the biggest security threat to peasant communities. It is important that the public hears about the indiscriminate aerial bombings, strafing, peasant massacres, forced surrenders, red-tagging and threats that militarization brings. The more people hear about the horrors that peasants in the countryside face, the clearer it is to see that the military is the real terrorist.
The military operations will continue to rain fire on the countryside and raze peasant communities to the ground until troops are pulled out of rural areas, and until the administration changes the orientation of its defense programs and policies from being pro-imperialist and anti-people, to being anti-imperialist and pro-people.
We would like to highlight continuing cases of bombings in provinces such as Cagayan, Rizal, and Negros that have displaced thousands of peasant families due to forced evacuations. Most recently, last Aug. 5, the 62nd Infantry Battalion bombed the mountains of Guihulugan, Negros Occidental for an hour and a half, leading to the destruction of crops planted by peasants in the area.
Mere days ago, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved the five-year National Security Policy (NSP), which mandates all government agencies, local government units, and instrumentalities to adopt the NSP 2023-2028 in their security programs as part of the administration’s purported “whole-of-government approach.”
We know that security and defense policies by the government have only ever been wielded violently against the people, and are not there to protect us. Pinoprotektahan ba ng militar ang mga mangingisda na hinaharass ng Tsina sa West Philippine Sea? Hindi. Imbis na paglingkuran ang taumbayan na nangangailangan ng proteksyon, binobomba nila ang mga pamilyang magsasaka at katutubo. (Is the military protecting the fishermen harassed by China in the West Philippine Sea? Nope. Instead of serving the people who need protection, they are bombing peasant and indigenous families.)
The Marcos administration’s security policy is shaped by the following goals: to serve the interests of imperialists, and to red-tag and violate the rights of peasants, indigenous people, marginalized groups and rights defenders. This whole-of-government approach forwarded by the five-year NSP will only allow them to broaden and streamline their attacks on the people.
Lastly, we urged the public to join the peasantry and condemn the attacks on peasant communities and call for the immediate pull-out of military troops.