Kabataan Party List Negros (KPL Negros) strongly condemned the harassment of farmers that took place in Hda. Michaela, Barangay Talotog, Murcia, according to a press release from the organization.
Farmers who were peacefully working on land already under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) were intimidated by private armed goons linked to Ta-ala Farms, Inc. on January 12. This incident gravely endangers the lives and livelihood of farmers who are merely asserting their rightful claim to the land promised to them.
The attack exposes the long-standing failures of the nation’s agrarian reform system. Despite the land being processed by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), delays, weak enforcement, and the influence of powerful landowners continue to leave farmers landless and unprotected. Such conditions allow violence, harassment, and even militarization to replace justice, revealing how flawed agrarian reform policies sustain systemic inequality in the countryside.
This harassment is not an isolated incident, but a symptom of systemic injustice born from failed agrarian reform.
KPL Negros stands firmly with the farmers of Murcia in calling for an end to this harassment, for accountability to those responsible, and for genuine agrarian reform that upholds farmers’ rights and dignity.
The statement called on the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to immediately intervene and decisively enforce the farmers’ rights over this CARP-covered land. DAR must not remain a passive bystander while agrarian reform beneficiaries are threatened and driven off their land by armed goons acting for corporate interests. Failure to act is not neutrality, it is a betrayal of the mandate of agrarian reform and a direct green light to land-grabbing, repression, and violence.*
