yellow naif disses land reform :(
nakakadismaya the 5-minute video produced and posted by newbie blogger felicity tan entitled Ang nangyari sa Hacienda Luisita, ayon sa mga magsasaka. it’s a cut-to-cut talking-heads kind of quickie production featuring just 7 former farmworkers / laborers / tenants of the hacienda saying they miss the old feudal days when the cojuangco-aquinos took care of their needs — complete with free health care, weekly allowances for the kids — and that they went on strike not for land — what would they do with land without capital and knowhow — but for better pay, except that the likes of satur ocampo and teddy casino made pakialam and satur even made millions of bucks, so please, leftists, stay away, we don’t want you meddling in our affairs.
i could not but react when i first saw it posted in facebook via carlos conde:
the video by itself is rather slanted against land reform and against the left, almost like an advertisement for oligarchic rule. but let’s rewind to the part where these few farmers are saying that they went on strike for better pay, so obviously things had deteriorated since the happy past when the hacienda took care of all their needs. sana ilagay naman sa context. oh and the accusation that satur got a lot of money out of some deal should have been followed by a statement from satur either denying or confirming, in fairness lang.
tan’s reply:
my purpose was just to air the other side para mailabas naman, yun lang, if you visit HL you will see it is impossible that the farmers demonize the cojuangcos as it is seen in the media. in any case, i put in the UP clip from TV patrol because the general sentiment is “give what the farmers what they want.” So I asked them. We already heard the farmers who want the land. How about the others? Lahat ba sila land ang gusto? Looking at reports, it seems that way. Inside HL is a different story. if you change your opinion on it or not is besides the point and not my purpose. I think Caloy’s blurb above says it all: “the OTHER side that ought to be heard as well” (thanks again C!)
soon after, men sta. ana also posted the video in fb with a comment, and we had this exchange:
men : Sad to say, this cannot be the full story. Some Noy campaigners, specifically those who work with the farmers, even think that the video might have been produced by the Luisita management (which is not the case, I think). So whoever produced this video only complicated the issue even for Noy supporters. The story is more complicated than what the video offers. I myself went to Luisita more than a month ago, accompanied by a young academic researcher doing his postgrad in Australia, a local organizer, a national peasant organizer, and a farmer who heads a national peasant organization (they are all pro-Noy), and the stories we received from the farmers differ from those interviewed in this video. In other words, there are many voices in Luisita, which this video does not capture. But what is clear is that different forces have used the farmers as pawns. What a tragedy.
me : men, i so agree. carlos conde also posted the video and i commented that it’s practically an advertisement for oligarchic rule, sabay banat kay satur. the video producer says it is simply meant to air the side of luisita farmers who continue to be unemployed, as if there were only this one side and only these few farmers. and she claims to be a journalist, even blogs about ethics of journalism. absolutely, support like this noynoy doesn’t need.
men : Oo nga, Angela. She committed the mistakes that she was railing against. Actually, I don’t have any problem re opinionated journalism. Just be honest about it. Hunter Thompson is my idol because of his gonzo journalism. Problem here is she becomes holier than thou.
worse, she’s getting a lot of kudos in her blog, i assume from political naifs like herself, who are thankful that she has cleared the air, so now they get it, the farmers don’t really want land, they just want the good old feudal days back, so now they WILL vote for noynoy. susmaryosep. i don’t get it. why isn’t she practising what she preaches re journalism ethics? maybe she thinks these ethics don’t apply sa blogosphere? she’s been blogging for just a month, so let’s give her the benefit of the doubt? LOL
pero sige na nga, maybe she didn’t plan for the video to stand alone, maybe she thought her “blurb”, where she says she didn’t bother airing the other sides because they’ve had enough exposure in media, presuming, incorrectly, that her readers all know the big picture already, would be posted around along with the video. still, the blurb said hardly enough. and besides, that’s not the way it works in the blogosphere. you have no say in what or how much gets picked up and posted around, so a video has to be complete in itself, airing all sides, unless hindi naman talaga credible journalism ang drama kundi partisan sensationalism.
salamat na lang at meron din siyang commenters na mas marunong sa kanya, like jonas and the penniless sitar player:
Jonas : medyo may intellectual dishonesty dito sa ginawa mo, ms. tan. una, binanatan mo ng todo ang report ng gmanews.tv dahil sa tingin mo mali-mali at iisang panig lang. tapos sinabi mo, pupunta ka sa luisita para hanapin ang katotohanan. pero ano ang ginawa mo? you just presented a few farmers na kontra kina lito bais, at napaka-tendentious pa ng mga argumento at totally without basis or proof (lalo na ang akusasyong binigyan si satur ocampo ng 6m).
in the final analysis, propaganda din ang ginawa mo na ang makakabenepisyo ay si noynoy at mga kalaban ng ulwu at catlu. true, pinresent mo ang side ng ilang mga farmers pero what they said didn’t help the discussion of the issue. they merely vented their ire.
medyo tuso ang posisyon mo na ang ginagawa mo lang ay ang side ng mga farmers na di naririnig. ok lang sana ito kung hindi mo pinipresenta ang sarili mo na journalist. e kaso, napaka-self-righteous pa nga ng dating mo about journalism, as if you are god’s gift to journalism in this part of the woods.
hindi mo pueding sabihin na kaya di mo nilagay ang side nina lito bais ay dahil masyado na silang sikat sa media. tusong pag-iisip yan. kung totoo kang journalist, give us the complete picture. otherwise, don’t pass yourself off as a journalist na walang kinikilingan kundi ang katotohanan.
in the final analysis, walang pinagkaiba ang ginawa mo sa mga puntong ayaw mo sa story ng gmanews.tv. bagkus, mas maganda ang ginawa ni stephanie dychiu dahila at least mas throrough ang research, mas maayos at mas complete ang picture, kahit na sabihin mong one-sided. April 24, 2010 2:22 PM
penniless sitar player : it only shows that redistribution should not be the only concern of land reform. a finite resource such as land, should be managed sustainably (considering the economic, social and ecological dimensionsof it.) unlike the virtual land in farmville (he he he) further subdividing it to smaller portions would not optimize its eco-social contribution. with the chains and layers of people and processes involved in production (farmhand, farmhelp, capital and service providers, irrigation providers, traders, buyers) agricultural production is actually one big enterprise. and with that, only a sustainable business model could answer the increasing needs of people dependent on it. new forms of ownerships and/ or profit/fruit sharing should be set in place. I also abhor the idea that control remains in the hand of a mega-family corporation but individually distributing it would even marginalize the people at the far end of the value chain. the idea of setting up cooperative, interdependent structures and mutually reinforcing agro-enterprises, owned and managed by the farmers, could be explored and it should be coupled with efforts to build the capacity of farmers to deal with it in a businesslike way. April 26, 2010 3:47 AM
cory’s comprehensive agrarian reform program failed (and carper, its extension, will fail) because of loopholes designed to allow old-rich hacenderos to be creative about finding ways of holding on to their hundreds of thousands of hectares of land instead of being creative about sharing the bounty with landless farmers in national food production. meanwhile, small middleclass landowners, like my nanay who inherited a mere 20 hectares or so of hard-earned riceland from her parents, had to give up all but 7 hectares some 20 years ago, ora mismo, agad-agad, grabe :(