Transformation after two decades of agrarian reform ... - RCSD

their own lands, became an empowering tool for its members. These cooperatives and groupsprovide its members capital through credit system to start up their own farms.Despite the changes brought about by the agrarian reform program and the emergingopportunities for the population of Buenavista, this place and its people remain tied to theReyeses. Why this is so?This may be explained by the persisting patron-client culture in Buenavista. While some tenantswere able to acquire their own lands, they were not fully emancipated from their bondage to theirformer landlords. For one, they cannot freely exercise their new-found ‘freedom’ because themunicipality is militarized. This can be observed by the presence of military checkpoints andmilitary personnel regularly patrolling the municipality. These are supposedly means to interceptmembers of the NPA. Some farmers, however, claim that these are surveillance ploys of theReyeses to identify individuals or groups, like the farmers associations, who are plotting againstthe clan. This paranoia is so obvious that new comers in the municipality like migrants have toendure frequent ‘visitations’ from the military or the police. Even researchers are treatedcircumspectly, and kept close, by the mayor’s minions, under the guise of protecting the peoplefrom possible NPA harassment while in the area. The Reyeses also try to proliferate this anti-NPA attitude by casting the latter into bad light and accusing them of extortion (in the form ofrevolutionary tax collection, which, according to the government, the proceeds do not go to thepeople but to the NPA members’ pockets), theft and harassment. The military is necessary toprotect the people from these aggravations. The whole municipality then becomes under the‘protection’ of the government, which, in this case, is the Reyeses.Migrants and the Persistence of Patron-Client RelationshipBecause of its proximity to the Bicol and Visayas regions, Buenavista has been experiencing asteady inflow of migrants. Ironically, these migrants are landless families escaping poverty intheir own hometowns. All of those who ended up in Buenavista became squatters in the Reyeses’lands. These people have been permitted by Mayor Reyes to put up their houses in his lands butforbidden them to till the land. This leads to total dependency on the part of the migrants to the11