Message to the Congress of Reestablishment of National Federation of Sugar Workers-FGT
June 24, 2017

I firmly unite and warmly greet the launch of the Reestablishment Congress of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW-FGT) with its theme of “Consolidate and Expand NFSW as the national federation of sugar workers. Fight for genuine land reform, and for sugar workers’ rights and welfare!”

The NFSW-FGT Re-establishment Congress is an important occasion in order to reorganize the NFSW, set the objectives and program of action for establishing this as a national federation of sugar farm workers. Your Congress at a time of intense neoliberal attack on labor, agriculture and the entire economy.

On your reestablishment of NFSW-FGT, it is good to recall its important lessons and history as the militant union of sugar farm workers that germinated and grew roots in Negros Island where the worst conditions of feudal and semifeudal exploitation existed. These lessons are important for the new NFSW members and leaders.

NFSW was established in La Carlota City by activist clerics and religious from the Jesuit Congregation, who firmly united with the people in upholding social justice. Among its founders was Comrade Louie Jalandoni, who at that time was a priest at the Social Action Director of the Bacolod Diocese, together with Fr. Hector Mauri and Fr. Edgar Saguinsin. Also important was the role played by Bishop Antonio Fortich, then bishop of Bacolod in the formation of NFSW. Bishop Fortich said, “I support NFSW because they are organized.”

The following year the NFSW led the historic sugar farmworkers’ strike at Hacienda Tuburda in La Carlota to demand wage increases and workers’ benefits. The plantation owners did not comply and fired all the NFSW worker-members. When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, the NFSW workers and unionists were arrested. And even during the period of martial law, organizing continued to advance despite the incidents of arrest involving NFSW leaders and sugar farm workers, as in the case of Sitio Malingid in 1978. Many of them joined the New People’s Army which established the revolutionary movement in Negros Island.

In that decade, the Philippines was the world’s 10th biggest producer of sugar and nine out of every 100 Filipinos worked in the sugar industry. More than 93 percent of more than half a million sugar workers were farm workers. In the study then made by the Association of Major Religious Superiors in 83 haciendas in Negros, more than half or 58 percent did not receive the minimum agricultural wage and 80 percent did not receive any benefit.

Due to these conditions, many sugar farm workers were attracted to NFSW and eventually became the best organizers. Comrade Serge Cherniguin who resigned from his job as an hacienda administrator to become a full-time organizer among the ranks of the sugar farm workers.

The establishment of NFSW then was not easy. It went through many hardships and trials and at the same time attend to the increasing tasks and work needed. NFSW acted firmly during the time that the sugar industry in the country was declining in the decade of the 1960s and 70s due to the global crisis of sugar overproduction and due to the greed and speculation of Marcos and Benedicto.

NFSW effectively used the formation of Basic Christian Communities or BCC in the method of arousing, organizing and mobilizing, which further exposed the oppression of the people of Negros, especially the sacadas and dumaans, in the hands of the big sugar hacenderos.

NFSW upheld the rights of the workers in the sugarfields and sugar centrals and fought feudalism, insufficient wages, landlessness of the peasants and farm workers, exploitation and cruelty of the landlords or sugar barons such as the Benedictos, Yulos, Coscuellas, Cojuangcos, Montelibanos and others, to the workers in sugar farms and the sugar centrals.

The azucareras and mills or the Sugar Centrals were divided among Jose Yulo of Canlubang, the Lopezes of Pasumil, the Cojuangcos of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac, the Osorios of Victorias Milling Company, the Ledesmas of San Carlos, while the Silay-Hawaiian, Central Bais in Negros Oriental and Central San Pedro in Batangas were controlled by foreigners there.

The country’s economy and politics was in grave crisis at that time and the Marcos dictatorship further worsened the conditions of the people. NFSW was gradually formed as the most militant workers’ federation in the nation. It went with the national workers’ strikes started by the La Tondeña strike in 1974-75. NFSW was recognized as the leading union of the sugar cane workers until it reached more than 30,000 in the whole of Negros at the start of the 1980s. NFSW leaders and members were among those who established Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).

NFSW continued to expose and fight the anti-worker Labor Law and to defend the sugar farm workers’ rights who were gravely affected by the crisis in the sugar industry. The azucareras closed. Plenty of strikes and sugar farm and hacienda workers’ actions were launched.

NFSW contributed a great deal to the people’s struggles against and in removing the Marcos dictatorship. The state labeled the church people and NFSW unionists as “communists.” The Escalante Massacre of 1985 was one of the brutal retaliation made by the state and the landlords against the powerful struggle of the peasants and workers.

When the world sugar industry fell in the mid-1980s, hundreds of thousands of sugar farm workers lost their jobs. The sugar mills closed. Millions of people in Negros further suffered and went hungry. NFSW lost a large number of its membership. Instead of its determination being broken, NFSW responded to these conditions and moved to save the people from hunger.

NFSW pushed on the landlords the farm lot program and campaigned for the cultivation of empty land for planting crops to feed the workers who lost their jobs in the plantations and sugar mills. Four thousand hectares of land were planted to corn, camote and other food crops. This was opposed by the landlords, although this was only one percent of the total land area of Negros. The NFSW membership again rose and before the end of the 1980s, it had 85,000 members.

These lessons served to guide the revitalization of NFSW until it spread nationwide. It is the task of NFSW to organize the largest number of sugar farm and mill workers concentrated in haciendas, sugar plantations and mills all over the country. Reach out to the more than 600,000 sugar farm workers in the entire country. Among these are those in Luzon, Panay, Eastern and Central Visayas, Negros and Mindanao. Organize also the sacadas who are the most exploited among those in the sugar plantations.

Persevere fully in upholding the labor rights of sugar farm and mill workers—the right to wages, benefits, unionization, and other democratic rights. Combat the pakyaw system that increase the suffering of farm workers, especially during the tiempo muerte or off-milling season. Oppose Sugar Block Farming as a method of concentrating in the hands of a few landlords the sugar farms and relegate the peasants to such exploitative schemes as joint ventures and contract growing. Push and campaign for the restoration of the multi-billion Social Amelioration Program to benefit the workers and their families.

At the same time, unite firmly with the militant peasant movement in the struggle for genuine land reform at the break up of the large haciendas and land monopoly of the few. Many of these large haciendas are in the region of Negros, including the so-called ECJ hacienda that occupies 6,000 hectares.

It would be fine for NFSW also to carry the 12-point calls formulated at the National Sugar Summit of the Union of Agricultural Workers in 2016. Continue to challenge the Duterte administration to respond to this concrete call of the sugar farm and mill workers.

We wish success to the NFSW Congress and its advance as the national federation of sugar workers!

Long live the National Federation of Sugar Workers!

Long live the sugar farm and mill workers!