The Cost: A failure of one The fall of many

(This article was written in the summer of 2019 when I was still a first year college. Its original title was "A peasants Tear". It was supposedly a part of our school publications feature page, unfortunately it didn't make it because the newsletter itself wasn't printed due to some confidential reasons. This is my first feature article and it sounded like a documentary script so please be patient when reading 😂😂, comment your views and insights about the issue or this article below)

A day with with the Farmers

The temperature [that day] was hot as expected because it is the start of a long dry season, the early stages of the month of March. I was in the streets looking for someone to talk about the current predicament of our agricultural industry for the school publication. The sunray gives a burning sensation to the skin whenever you set to walk under the scorching heat, so I decided to take a break under the shade of a nearby shed. I may not be able to endure the realfeel temperature but the blazing heat won't stop the harvest season, a time that farmers had waited for months. I could see the large reapers and trucks loaded with sacks of grain as they pass by the main road near the bench where I was sitted. You can feel the vibration of the ground with the sole of your feet whenever this Large vehicles pass near you. This parade of wheeled transports who just ascended from the dry fields were always accompanied by individuals who may be walking or riding their own vehicles. 

Dressed with loose pants and rugged clothes, sometimes with jackets that are not too tight to limit movements and not too thick to cause overheating, as for their head they put hats in it or sometimes cover their whole head and face with clothes. If I don't just know that they were farmers I could have think of them as beggars with all those garments stained with mud and bogs. The only difference is that they weren't begging for alms, they are the same people who feeds us. You would usually see them during wet seasons planting their seeds, preparing the fields, cutting the weeds and creating little canals for better irrigation. During dry seasons you would usually see them on roads busy drying their yields, other younger farmers are on large ricemills working to dry sold grains for a little wage from the ricemill owners.

(Photo captured by Mark Anthony Hidalgo, a student of BTVTED-3 and a photographer of The Reflector.)

I'm not different from them, I was once in my life a farmer too, but not the typical farmer who tills his land and particularly owns it. Me and my father back then we're just tenants of a little piece of farming field that our relatives owned. In my years working and living within our small baranggay (village) I was able to divide the rice farming community into three groups. First are the farmers who owns and farms the lands themselves, the second are farmers who provides farming services to their landlords, third are mere workers who labours on rice Mills and palay buying stations.

Last month [February 14, 2019] the President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Rice Tarrification Law [Rice Liberalization Law] that changed the drift of domestic Agriculture in the country. This law created unrest among farmers in the country. Most negative feedbacks chiefly came from rice farmers arguing that it has brought a tremendous blow to the industry.

(Image source: Rappler "President Duterte after signing the Rice Tarrification Law.)

I met Mark who has a farm that he himself tends, according to him he harvests enough yields every season for his family's consumption and saves part of his yields for commercial purposes to gain some profits for the family's expenditures. He proceeded to tell me that he always wakes up early in the morning right before sunrise and work all day long for a daily basis. I can tell by his very appearance that he is pretty much telling the truth, his body is well built, arms are strong and his large green veins flow like rivers stretching from his wrist to his elbow. His muscles are well defined, a little bulky but not to the extent that it was too buffed like a monstrous mass monster. A certain proof of his life long toiling in the muddy fields. Mark said that farming is his way of life and that he can't just let go of it and it basically became part of him, something that completes him. For this guy, farming is as essential as air because without it he wouldn't be able to send his children to school and provide a good life for his family. But he told me that eventhough he was able to provide a stable life for his family with this job, it wasn't that dependable at all times.

"There are times that I would lack a certain amount of money, even though I earned profits every season sometimes this isn't enough as there are some sudden unplanned expenditures where I need to spend money on. I wanted to dream for harvest season to begin early everytime a situation like that happens but I can't just do that so I'll just ask and borrow money from my friends."

Mark has dedicated his life in farming to feed his family and the nation yet sometimes they can't even feed themselves. "Sometimes all of my profit from selling my harvest ends up being used to pay my debts, debts that I acquired in order to sustain the farm and pay the amount of money I borrowed for my family."

The Filipino farmers are burdened by the current socio-economic and political setting of our country. All farmers shares the same struggle like Mark, they toil for the nation yet their hard work are not recognized in the same amount of deed that they did for the people. "How can I be able the debts I acquired, specially if the price of this grain is too low, if I give all my profits to pay my debts what will happen to my family? I wasn't expecting for this to happen", he said.

(Image source: Rappler)

Another farmer share the same struggle as Mark and his name is Julian, a young 22 [now 24] year old tenant of an incredibly huge farming land. Although he services a landlord Julian still works full time in a land that he basically doesn't own.  He almost shares the same characteristics with Mark the only difference is Julian is a little shorter and has darker complexion compared to Mark. His skin is burnt and his face seems older even he is still in his youthful years. By his looks and sun baked skin he would appear as another ordinary farmer for anyone who doesn't really know him. You wouldn't expect that this seemingly simple farmer is a university educated youth who even graduated with honors as an Internet Technology student at a State University, ironic isn't it? That a man who studied computer technology and is an expert on it resorted in agriculture.

A farm tenant is not different from an ordinary farmer, that only characteristics that separates them from the conventional definition of farmer that we used to is that he doesn't own the land that he farms. They are supported by the landlord, the owner of the land and the one who they work for, they are self supporting they are supported by their bosses. Whatever Julian asked the landlords provide, he can also asked the landlord for an advance payment. Wage distribution In Julian's case is a different process, farmer tenants like him gets payed using the percentage method or in local tongue is called "Tampa", "porsiyentuhan", and "tersiyahan".

"Our payment sometimes depends on how much the landlord has earned", he stated, if your advance payment is somewhat higher than the expected revenue you'll have to pay it through labor or choose to pay the excess in cash", Julian added.

(Photo by Mark Anthony Hidalgo)

Farmers with the likes of Julian do not have full authority over profits. The most common system [based in our community] is that a farmer would likely gain 10% of the final profits, it means ten sacks of grain per hectare. That system isn't universal the division of profits still depends on what the tenant and the landowner/landlord has agreed too. 

Julian and Mark's profit depends on how much the yields would sell in the commerce. The payment that Julian will receive is strongly determined by the current price of grains and given the fact that the price of grain today is way too low, it is expected that Julian will be payed less than what he expects. Julian is a single man without a family to care, the only responsibility he has is to himself for he came from a fairly middle class family and all of his siblings are professionals so he wouldn't need to worry about his family. But he still felt the burden of the current system, he constantly complaining until we didn't realized that it's turning dark, and as we part ways in the dark street corner he told me, "Maybe I should go and tend more lands rather than looking for a single one alone", which means he is going find another landlord to whom he can offer his service.

(Photo by Mark Anthony Hidalgo)

On my way home I stumbled upon George, the day has almost ended but George is still in his way carrying sacks of grain each weighing 50 kilograms in his shoulders. They just finished drying the palay grains and is now on their way to Aling Bibe's warehouse carrying the last of 120 sacks they've piled on the warehouse earlier. Aling Bibe is a small scale palay buyer who's little "pigment" (a wide cemented place use for drying palay) was just meters away from our house. George is one of her workers who dedicated their entire day working under the scorching sun, the heat of the sun is nothing compared to George's blazing perseverance. He is actually the same age as Julian ,but unlike Julian George is uneducated since birth and the palay buying station of Aling Bibe has been his second home for many years. He has no family to tend but as an adult who's living by himself he must work or else he'll starve to death. Though he and Aling Bibe may not be a farmer in the sense that they doesn't farm any land I still consider them as farmers, individuals who works to dry and deliver grains and that falls into my third category, the farmer/mill workers.

(Image source: Rappler)

All of them like any palay farmer in the country is affected by the governments new approach towards domestic agriculture. The signing of the new Rice Tarrification Law [Rice Liberalization Law] paved way for poverty to worsen the situation of farmers in this country. They have created the perils of the farmers themselves. The effects of this new law is vast, it may have brought us a little benefit specially in decreasing the inflation rate[then] but this is at the expense of an industry, a whole workforce and our whole life force. The government successfully initiated it's plans but at what cost? With this I remembered a friends qoute, "of want use is tarrif when the farmer is already dead?"

"Our work is so hard now it became harder", Mark said, "Maybe I should sell this little piece of land and set up a business instead", Mike added.

As im writing this article I recalled Julian's words during one of our discussions where he is constantly complaining he said [In Filipino], "What will happen to us now? We work hard, we toil hard, we feed this nation full of professional people. We feed the stomach of this politicians. What they eat comes from our own labour yet instead of commending us for those acts they degraded us instead, worst they gave us burdens that we can't carry"

I admire the perseverance of this farmers who amidst chaos and economic unrest are still working. As an agrarian state it is a shame that we can't empower domestic agriculture in our country. The people under Agriculture industry is now facing a huge dillema whether they will abandon agriculture to embrace other industry or hold on even amidst constant pressure from senators like Villar who keeps on degrading and disregarding them on national tv. One thing is certain Domestic Agriculture is deteriorating and the cry of this peasants is unheard.

(Source: Change.org)

Written by: Zeus Gongob

Special thanks to Mark Anthony Hidalgo please visit his page at https://m.facebook.com/Ton-Ying-PhotoGraphy-106531987567626/