Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

the peasants and their organizers, 2) the agrarian reform
im plement ing parties (the government) who hold the
power to apply the related public policy, and 3) local
establishments such as landowners or land controllers
and their allies, many of whom are embedded in both
the state and society. With the pressure from below
from the peasants and their organizers and from above
from the pro-reform government parties, we may see
the outcome of positive social change in terms of some
achievements of the independent peasant groups such as
in gaining the land and more accountable performance
of the government in mostly awkward policy arena
of agrarian reform. Such dynamics allow the peasant
groups to clearer recognise and to prevail over deeprooted
impediments to social changes.
In addition, as Fox asserts, the role of rural social
movement is instrumental factor in yielding powersharing,
transparency and participation. However,
the stronger the movement from the part of the social
actors alone does not guarantee the yields of the
collective struggles as it has been suggested by political
scientists such as David S. Meyer (2001). This relativity
should be applied even to the primacy of engagement
of state-social actors. What Meyer refers as “fortifying
myth”, therefore, remains valid for the actors to create
for certain collective movements to yield and to persist.
And I would argue that the myths are being created by
the actors within these researched social movements.
Another restriction from comparative approach refer to
the condition that the political structure and historical
context of both countries do not easily match up. 2
However, the condition of the peasants, specifically
those landless, who dominate the population in both
countries, are quite similar in facing extreme poverty
and patronised daily life-culture, in the past and in
recent time, and in such a comparative perspective the
question of fighting injustice remains tangibly relevant
in both countries. I argue, accordingly, that analytical
scope at micro, inter-village level is favourable focus in
this research.
TWO CASE STUDIES IN EACH COUNTRY
I take the Philippine case studies in two villages from
Negros Occidental province in Visayas, and Tarlac
province in Central Luzon. The province has performed
among the worst accomplishment according to the
government as of July 2004, 3 which I take as a starting
point. Tarlac province performs among the highest.
The selected social movement group was the Nagasi
barangay people who fought for land that was part of
the Benedictos family’s hacienda Esperanza (I call them
SOCIAL JUSTICE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY
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the Negros case for the rest of this article). While in
Tarlac in Northern Luzon, I draw my attention to a
landholding in Ablang Saplang and Nancamarina
barangays which formerly owned by the powerful
Cojuangco family (‘Tarlac case’). The NGO joined the
barangays into one working unit as both may be formed
into one scope of organizing activities.
In Indonesia I also take two villages, all in West Java
province under one peasant union of Serikat Petani
Pasundan (SPP) as the main umbrella of movement
organization. Because there is no government’s data
available to start with, I take a deliberation with a senior
scholar-cum-activist 4 on the peasant movement to select
two kinds of peasant organizations at village level that
have performed best and worse practices in reaching
the goal of agrarian reform. I took Ciècèng village, in
Tasikmalaya district as the peasant group that unfolds
later to be the strongest in controlling the occupied
lands. The other case is Cibenda villagers’ movement,
in a coastal village to Indian Ocean, adjacent to the
international tourism industry of Pangandaran in
Ciamis district, as a village that has failed to sustain
social movement.
Philippine Case Studies
Dynamics of the Peasant Movement in the Negros Case
There are four main rises of the social movement of
the Nagasi barangay’s peasants, characterised by land
occupation and harvesting actions. 5 The first round
took place by the end of 2000, marked by clashes
that took place as they were blocking each other from
harvesting, while police kept watching. Peasants decided
to retreat as they were outnumbered. Second round
of vibrant movement, a year after the last retreat in
February 2002, was marked by strong out-of-the-area
mass mobilizations, while building alliance with other
peasant organizations to storm the local government’s
land reform agencies both at municipal and provincial
level for two weeks. The third round took place
five months later, when the peasants, assisted by a
municipal level allied peasant organization, conducted
bigger mass mobilization, supported by members of
provincial level allied peasant organizations and other
civil society groups. The three-day mobilization came
out to be stronger as it was conducted right in the
area, hence, occupying the area including harvesting
activities. The fourth round was marked by killing
incident of a beneficiary-peasant in March 2003, when
the peasants launched land occupation, after months
earlier of coordinating with diverse parties to occupy
the awarded land. The failure of mass mobilization in
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows