DAVAO CITY (MindanaoExaminer / Jan. 24, 2012) – Filipino activists commemorated the infamous “Mendiola Massacre” 25 years after state forces opened fire on a huge crowd of farmers protesting the government’s failure to distribute lands to beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.
More than a dozen farmers, workers of the Hacienda Luisita of President Benigno Aquino’s family, were brutally killed and scores wounded in the January 22, 1987 attack at Mendiola Bridge where the protest was being held.
“After many decades, justice is still nowhere to be found now that another Cojuangco-Aquino is in the seat of power,” said Joselito Lagon, Jr., chairman of the League of Filipino Students in Davao City.
In 2004, seven farmers on the picket line of the Cojuangco-Aquino-owned Hacienda Luisita were also brutally murdered after demanding for land distribution of the vast estate.
“And similar to the Mendiola Massacre, not a single perpetrator has been put behind bars. Clearly, the Aquino regime continues to protect the self-interest of the landed elites over the peasants who are deprived of their lands,” Lagon said.
“On the coming commemoration of the National Youth Week this January 26, the youth should never waiver in joining the struggle of the farmers and the people for genuine agrarian reform, decent jobs with decent salary, free and quality education, and social services. 25 years of impunity is enough. The Filipino youth has played an important role in history during the Martial Law, and we will continue that legacy until genuine democracy and freedom is attained,” he added.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Mindanao also joined the commemoration of the massacre.
“Today, the NDFP-Mindanao is one with the Filipino people in remembering the single most bloody event in 1987 when thousands of peasants marched towards Mendiola to reach Malacanang and demand in protest the implementation of genuine land reform from Corazon Aquino, who was only into her second year since catapulted to the presidency via the Edsa uprising.”
“The Mendiola massacre, where over twenty farmers were killed on the spot and several hundred others injured, exposed Cory Aquino’s only true loyalty which was to her big landlord clan, and began the people’s disillusionment towards a regime that rode on the wings of mass movement only to have those wings mangled by a masterstroke of fascism,” said Jorge Madlos, a spokesman for the NDFP-Mindanao.
He said 25 years hence, justice continues to evade the Mendiola massacre victims and their families because the masterminds and perpetrators were never punished. Now, with the scion of the so-called “hero of Edsa,” Benigno Aquino III, in the presidency, justice has become ever more elusive.
Madlos said: “There’s blood on the hands of Noynoy Aquino: the Hacienda Luisita massacre. As with the Mendiola carnage, nobody has been punished for the killing of seven farmers and injuring of dozens of others during one of the most violent crackdown against peasants and workers in Hacienda Luisita.”
“Noynoy Aquino and the big landlord Cojuangco-Aquino clan have no intention to simply give the land to the very farmers and workers whom they have enslaved, oppressed and exploited for decades. The demand for genuine land reform is an anathema to the Cojuangco-Aquino landlords.”
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