The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) Commission 6 salutes the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) for 25 years of fervent struggle for Land, Justice and Freedom. KMP has been at the forefront of the struggle for Genuine Land Reform in the Philippines since the Marcos era, drumming up issues and upholding the interests of the Filipino peasantry. It has grasped that deep-seated social unrest in the Philippines has been fuelled by massive landlessness, feudal and semi-feudal exploitation of impoverished Filipino peasants by landlords, compradors and US imperialism.
Over 25 years of continuing struggle, the KMP has faced the massive attack of Philippine puppet regimes. Farmers belonging to KMP have been massacred at Mendiola on January 22, 1987 and at the Hacienda Luisita on November 16, 2004. But the KMP has never faltered and, instead, has intensified the struggle for Land and Justice. It has endured and prospered even under the recent fascist rule of the US-Arroyo regime.
The KMP continues to demand the junking of the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and pushes for the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) in the Philippine congress. In addition, its regional and provincial chapters have launched massive actions to reduce land rent, eliminate underpricing of their produce and overpricing of inputs, and wipe out usury and other forms of semi-feudal exploitation. All of these advance the Struggle for Land and Justice in the Philippines, as well as in the whole world.