Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far
and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.
"The Old Poets of China" by Mary Oliver

People’s Agrarian Reform Congress at the UP Asian Center

Details
Category: News @ UP Asian Center

The Asian Center is co-organizing and will host the People’s Agrarian Reform Congress: Renewed Unities for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development on Friday, 6 June, 2014, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Asian Center Auditorium, Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. The Congress is free and open to the public.

Responding to the ‘growing need to highlight the political urgency of agrarian reform struggles in the country,’ the Congress brings together participants from labor organizations, civil society initiatives, peasant groups, the media, government agencies, development institutions, the youth, and the academe, among others. According to a concept paper, the Congress aims to:

  • "Bring back agrarian reform in the national development agenda and public consciousness as a key social and economic justice measure

  • Generate sufficient multisectoral and multidisciplinary support and national-international pressure on the Philippine government to prioritize agrarian reform, in light of the conjuncture on the deadline of CARPER’s land distribution component, increasing land use conversions of farmlands, corporate land grabbing, and intensifying human rights violations and culture of landlord and corporate impunity in the countryside. 

  • Discuss what needs to be done: come up with key actions and policy proposals for the continuation and completion of land acquisition and distribution; and, the continuation of the agrarian reform program, such as the programmatic implementation of support services for farmer beneficiaries and the achievement of agrarian justice, organized in the following time frames: before June 30, 2014 (immediate, doable and urgent), June 2014 to June 2016 (short-term/medium-term), and beyond June 2016 (long-term).
  • Use this space for direct actions and mobilizations during and after the congress in time for the CARP anniversary (week of action)

 The whole-day Congress will address several themes, including the de-prioritization of agrarian reform/smallholder agriculture under P-Noy; the slow implementation of CARP/ER; land distribution issues; lack of support services; agrarian justice issues; human rights violations and violence against farmers, women and children; land conversions and land grabbing; women, gender and agrarian reform; importance of agrarian reform and link to other key sectoral and development issues; and concrete suggestions and call to actions and proposals.

The Congress will feature a plenary conference type in the morning and breakout sessions in the afternoon. For confirmation and more information, please contact Mary Ann Manahan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at +63.906.298.3206 (c/o Secretariat).