July 2025

After three years, the illusions conjured by the Marcos Jr regime have all but faded. Revealed behind its spectacular promises for the people and posturings of elegance were sheer greed and incompetence. The early unmasking has made further efforts by the regime to deodorize itself instead make it stink more and more. With still three years in his term, at most, Marcos Jr is now exposed as having no substance nor showmanship.

“Bagong Pilipinas” is already old and has aged badly. Marcos Jr’s grand pronouncements were all damp squib; especially regarding agriculture, the most infamous of which was the P20/kilo rice. He also promised to “finish” land reform, opened up to suspending the RLL, respect human rights, and pursue an independent foreign policy, among others. But the Marcos Jr regime merely proceeded with anti-peasant and pro-oligarch policies. It even worsened these through NAEA, RLL amendments, BBM, MC 83, and adding EDCA sites, among others. Marcos Jr has only exacerbated the crisis of Philippine agriculture and overall economy and politics.

The 2025 elections again exposed the bankruptcy of the prevailing political system. Dynasties remained dominant nationwide. Marcos Jr is now a lame duck whose political future depends on the alignment of other factions; and the machinations of the rivaling imperialists US and China. Already, everyone is looking towards 2028 beyond Bongbong. But regardless of Marcos Jr’s future, the policies he instituted and the damages it has done will outlast his regime.

The last years of Marcos Jr’s term will be more tumultuous as conflicts between both local and foreign ruling class factions intensify. But as the nation’s agrarian and agricultural crisis worsen, the Filipino peasant movement broadens and is regaining momentum nationwide.

1. Land reform as gimmick
2. Land grabbing in so many names
3. Sabotaging PH rice
   1. Case study: Rice farmer costs and returns
4. All-around agri crisis
   1. Case study: Piece-rate wages of sugarworkers
5. Plundering with impunity
6. Covering up state forces
7. Selling PH sovereignty
8. The peasant struggle shines
   1. Footnotes

Land reform as gimmick

Like his predecessors, Marcos Jr regards land reform as a tool to pacify unrest or gain popular support from the rural sector. He has continued CARP despite its abject failure and ignored persistent calls for a new and genuine agrarian reform program. CLOA distributions remain carnivalesque events where DAR and other government officials glorify themselves and the ruling regime.

The DAR boasts of distributing almost 195,000 CLOAs from July 2022 to January 2025. But 68% or 132,000 of these are merely individualized collective CLOAs parcelized under SPLIT. These “distributions” did not involve new land reform areas. SPLIT, among other things, gave the government the ability to continue the illusion that it is distributing thousands of lands despite not covering new areas since 2014. But DAR has been sluggish even based on its own targets and metrics. Begun in 2020 and originally planned to end in 2024, SPLIT has only finished about 12% of its target ARBs and area as of January 2025. The WB approved its extension until 2027. 

Marcos Jr’s NAEA adds another layer to the charade. Overhyped, NAEA did not repeal CARP provisions requiring amortization payments; it did not provide free land distribution. It only condoned a particular amount of old debts, excluding new debts beneficiaries could acquire in the future. It covers few, amounting to just 21% of all CARP beneficiaries and 6% of all registered farmers. It meant little to those covered especially since farmers should not have been charged with amortization in the first place.

NAEA beneficiaries receive COCROMs to certify the condonation. The first-ever COCROM distribution ceremony was held last July 19, 2024 in Pangasinan, a few days before that year’s SONA. COCROM distributions would only occur again towards the end of 2024, before the start of the official electoral campaign period.¹ Marcos Jr often attended these ceremonies, practically touring the country in regional assemblies attended by thousands of farmers hauled from various provinces. So far, only about 14% of the target beneficiaries (almost 85,000 ARBs) have received COCROMs. These papers however mean little to numerous pending agrarian cases. A COCROM does not assure the farmers’ right to land as it remains dependent upon the CLOA it is attached to, which remains vulnerable to revocations through exclusions, exemptions, conversions, and various other schemes.

Further, NAEA has not removed the unjust payment tendered by CARP to landlords, even for sullied lands. It has only passed the burden from the beneficiaries to the general population. This has been highlighted recently after the CA ordered the government to pay P28 billion in “just compensation” to Hacienda Luisita Inc.

SPLIT and NAEA sows division in peasant organizations, especially those engaged in various forms of cooperative farming under collective CLOAs. This is the case in land cultivation (bungkalan) areas of KMP Negros in former haciendas in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental especially amid the militarized implementation of SPLIT; and collective plots of AMB in the disputed Araneta Estate in SJDM, Bulacan as the COCROM distribution again coincided with militarization. 

Condonation and parcelization both serve the objective of building a so-called “free market” of land. These programs aim to produce “clean titles” from CLOAs to free up millions of hectares of CARP lands for easier sale and lease. Its ultimate beneficiaries are landed interests who have the resources and motives to acquire more and more land. These interests include traditional hacienderos and plantation-owning families, and big companies in agribusiness or non-agricultural sectors such as real estate, both local and foreign. For peasants, this means more frequent and intensified evictions, coercions, and other schemes to kick them out or seize their control of the land.

Official statistics have failed to conceal the country’s worsening land problem. Newly released agricultural census data revealed that only 28% of farm parcels are fully-owned in 2022. This means 72% or seven out of ten farmholders can be considered landless. There are 1.2 million more landless farmers between 2012 and 2022. Tenancy, leasing, and/or renting also remains at 23%, which is similar to the 26% rate in 1971. Consequently, farmlands are severely concentrated. The same census demonstrated that the biggest 1% of farmholders (about 85,000) take up 20% of the total farm area, amounting to 1.2 million hectares. Meanwhile, 68% of all farms (about 5.1 million) are crammed in just 13%, equivalent to a measly 811,000 hectares. The average farm size has shrunk to 0.83 hectares and almost half (49%) are less than half hectare. The situation can be worse in particular regions. In Negros, for example, full-ownership is only at 18%, while less than 1% control more than 30% of the farm area. Moreover, these figures only consider farmholdings. Including non-agricultural lands such as those used for commercial activities, real estate, and land banking could reveal a starker reality of land concentration.

Land grabbing in so many names

Land grabbing continued through various schemes. Many of these involve land conversion into non-agricultural uses, particularly for ambitious government infrastructure projects and in connection to expansive commercial operations. These conversions often involved lands devoted to the small-scale production of food crops or animal-raising. “Development” has historically been used to justify these displacements; the adjective “sustainable” is being increasingly added recently.

The current regime inherited its predecessors’ infrastructure mania. As of May 2025, Marcos Jr’s Build-Better-More (BBM) infrastructure program already lists 207 flagship projects. So far, only eight of these have been completed, 70 are targeted for completion by 2028 (13 this year), while the majority (125) are expected to last beyond the current regime. Costing a total of P10 trillion, most (39%) of these will be funded through foreign loans (the majority from Japan).  These projects drive further land grabbing and speculation. 

Alarmingly, Central Luzon has the most region-specific flagship projects with 31. The country’s rice granary has increasingly turned into a conversion hotspot in the past decades. 19 BBM projects involve the 31,400-hectare Clark Freeport and SEZ, the centerpiece of which is the 9,450-hectare New Clark City (NCC). NCC impacts some 35,000 farmers and indigenous peoples. Among other flagship projects in Central Luzon is the 2,500-hectare Bulacan International Airport of the San Miguel Corporation, itself part of a larger 12,000-hectare mixed-use “township”. Costing more than P700 billion, the airport will displace more than 700 families and induce an environmental disaster.

These big flagship projects drive land prices up, in turn encouraging more land grabbing, speculation, and conversion. Such is the case in Hacienda Luisita (HL) in Tarlac. The country’s quintessential agrarian case is now under threat of various conversion projects. In October 2024, Marcos Jr turned Aboitiz’s 200-hectare TARI Estate in HL into a mixed-use SEZ. Advertised as a “prime industrial location,” Aboitiz leverages the various transport projects located around Tarlac. Aboitiz’s CEO heads Marcos Jr’s Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC).
Land banking remains prevalent. Corporations engaged in real-estate stock up on increasing lands for “future development” but left idle for years. AyalaLand’s land bank is among the largest nationwide at almost 11,000 hectares in 2024. That year, it made P158 billion in revenues just from leasing and property development, almost 90% of its total. Other corporations with sizable land banks include MegaWorld with more than 7,000 hectares, and the Villars’ VistaLand with almost 3,000 hectares.

Land grabbing and conversion in the name of “green” projects is becoming more prominent under Marcos Jr. It is laying the ground to accommodate even more foreign investments on land, including increasing so-called “climate finance”. Marcos Jr issued EO 18 in February 2023, fast-tracking the issuance of permits and licenses for so-called “strategic investments”, such as those from abroad for “clean energy” and “green metals”. As of March 2025, these “strategic” projects already amount to P4.6 trillion. In May of the same year, the Marcos Jr regime enacted the PENCAS which aims to “measure and assign monetary value” to (i.e. determine the price of) the country’s environmental and natural resources. This adds to the more blatant 99-year Foreign Lease Act passed by Congress and awaiting Marcos Jr’s signature. The proposed NALUA, which eases land conversion, also gains additional push amid the land rush related to the so-called “energy transition”.

Foreign capital in the name of renewable energy (RE) now enters the country increasingly. In 2024 alone, 68% of all approved foreign investments were for RE. Nationwide, more than 46,000 hectares are targeted for solar farms until 2040. This will mostly affect the country’s limited plainlands needed to maximize solar panels. One such project is the 3,500-hectare Terra Solar project being constructed in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija. Aiming to be the world’s largest solar and battery facility, its 2024 groundbreaking was attended by Marcos Jr himself. Earlier in 2023, he also attended the launching of Ayala’s 625-hectare Pagudpud Wind Farm, the biggest in the country. Hydropower projects also threaten hundreds and thousands of hectares, such as in Cordillera.

All these may add to the capacity for overall local energy production. But the country’s energy production capacity is already somewhat underutilized. Capacity utilization for fossil fuels is at 49% and just 33% for varying types of RE in 2022. Insufficient transmission infrastructure is a huge factor limiting energy capacity utilization and expansion. For this, the NGCP has unveiled a 2023-2040 roadmap to develop the nation’s transmission grid. The construction of grid infrastructure will again run over peasant communities, such as the threat to the Lupang Ramos bungkalan in Dasmarinas, Cavite. But even with a better grid, the Philippines currently lacks the technology to widely utilize these types of RE anyway. Oil and coal still dominate energy consumption nationwide accounting for 56%.² Electricity, which is 22% of consumption, is also predominantly (78%) produced by fossil-fueled power plants. With almost no domestic oil production, the country ultimately imports 51% of its energy needs. As such, there is an ongoing rivalry (or negotiation) among compradors engaged in carbon-intensive industries (oil cartel, car imports, etc.) and the emerging RE market, reflecting a global trend. The majority (54%) of total energy is consumed by the monopolized transport and industry sectors. In contrast, 58% of household consumption (accounting for 29% of total) are in the form of non-“modern” renewable biomass, principally fuelwood and charcoal. 

The country’s forests are being auctioned for so-called “carbon offsets”. In June 2025, the Marcos Jr regime consolidated various forest management agreements into a single instrument. This aims to encourage investments on the country’s forest lands covering almost 16 million hectares. It ties in with earlier initiatives to legislate a carbon market framework. If enacted, it will make the Philippines the first country to sell sovereign “carbon credits”. For this, the DENR has reportedly already identified 1.2 million hectares as priority areas for “carbon sequestration” initiatives.

Meanwhile, the country has faced 186,400 hectares of tree cover loss since 2022. The continued implementation of the NGP has not stopped deforestation and has been anti-poor. It’s set to end with the Marcos Jr regime in 2028.

Big mining operations are now being done and pushed in the name of “energy transition”. The Marcos Jr regime has encouraged boosting the extraction of the country’s reserve “critical minerals” as foreign capital flows into the digital and renewable technologies requiring it. These critical minerals include copper, nickel, cobalt, and silver. The Philippines is the world’s top source of nickel, accounting for 26% of total nickel exports in 2023, mostly going to China and Japan.

Currently, a fifth of the country’s landmass is covered by mining and exploration permits, with 26% of critical mineral areas covering ancestral domains. One such project is the Makilala copper-gold mine affecting 2,500 hectares of ancestral lands in Kalinga. It was issued with a permit in March 2024 and even secured a USD 76-million MWF loan in September of that year.
“Green grabbing” also occurs on water. The first in the country and the biggest in the world, the 2,000-hectare SunAsia floating solar project in Laguna Lake threatens local fishing livelihoods. It’s the first project to benefit from EO 18, streamlining regulatory processes. Marcos Jr has also issued EO 21, pushing for offshore wind power. The DOE has identified 16 future offshore “windpark” projects for 14 provinces. At least one is targeted to operate before the current regime ends. Among these is the BuhaWind Offshore Wind Farm also in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte. It will  “displace over 6,500 fishers and threaten[s] traditional fishing grounds.”

Sabotaging PH rice

Despite opening up to suspending the RLL during his 2022 campaign, Marcos Jr just continued its implementation. Six years under RLL, the country is only mired in an even worse rice crisis. 

RLL’s first years under Duterte already revealed its unsustainability and bankruptcy; and so too the import-dependent food security model behind it. The slight fall in rice prices from 2019 to 2021 achieved through import surges was overblown but in reality shallow and fleeting, especially in contrast to the downplayed but actually massive and long-term damages to local rice production.

Currently, the first hurdle to sustainably affordable rice prices is RLL itself. The Marcos Jr regime however refuses to see its counter-productivity. And so, it stands as the biggest saboteur wrecking the Filipino rice industry.

Rice prices have already been on the rise since the end of 2021. Capitalizing this, Marcos Jr prominently used the P20/kilo promise in his 2022 electoral campaign. As president and concurrent agriculture secretary, he first issued EOs 10 and 50 in 2022 and 2023, extending the lower rice tariffs originally imposed by the past regime as an “emergency” measure in 2021. Ineffective, Marcos Jr issued a rice price ceiling in August 2023. Still ineffective, it was lifted just after two months in October. By November of that year, Marcos Jr let go of the agriculture department, passing it to a fishing tycoon.

Rice prices continued to increase. By June 2024, a month before his SONA, Marcos Jr issued EO 62, drastically lowering the rice tariff from 35% to 15% until 2028. Since then, the average rice import arrival has increased to almost 390,000 MT/month from 260,000 MT/month since March 2019. A record 572,000 MT of imported rice arrived just in the harvest month of October 2024. This is larger than the 400,000 MT of rice imported for the entire year of 2013. For the whole of 2024, the volume of rice imported reached 4.8 million MT, an all-time high. It is projected that the country will import a new record 5.4 million MT of rice this 2025, remaining the world’s top rice importer.

In a fair market, the quicker deluge of more imported rice should drop retail prices. However, rice trade monopolists try to limit this to maximize profits. The decrease is then largely due to public clamor compelling the government to curb price manipulation. The DA’s maximum suggested retail price (MSRP) on rice, started in January 2025 (enabled by RLL amendments), is such a response to public pressure. The problem with this measure, like the 2023 price ceiling, is that it primarily punishes retailers when the largest bulk of the rice price (44% in 2023) is at the hands of wholesalers. The MSRP reinforces rice trading concentration and monopoly.
Anyhow, the almost unimpeded increases in rice prices since December 2021 was halted. But despite being on a downward trend since July 2024, rice prices remain high. The P44/kg rice price in April 2025 may be lower than the P51/kg exactly a year prior and before EO 62, but it is still 13% higher than the P39/kg when Marcos Jr became president in June 2022. Worse, this decrease is bound to taper off to renewed rice price hikes as we have seen between 2019 and 2021.

Very public legislative inquiries were also held beginning March 2024. In September of that year, the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act was enacted. In November, amid persistently high prices despite the drastic tariff reduction in June due to EO 62, the “murang pagkain supercommittee” was formed. RLL amendments were enacted by December 2024. The hearings only gave the Marcos Jr regime the appearance of doing something, and the amendments provided it with populist measures to appease discontent. Both did not address the fundamental problem of developing local rice production.

Putting aside the lapses in its content, the efficacy of the Anti-Agri Sabotage Act remains to be seen. The inter-agency body created for its implementation met for the first time just this March 2025. It has so far not convicted any smuggler.

Likewise, the amended RLL did not change anything fundamental with the law or its impacts. It authorized the president to declare a “food security emergency” which it did announce by January 2025. During which, the DA may sell NFA buffer stocks to local governments, some agencies, and the public (through Kadiwa). It may also replenish the buffer stock by buying locally or importing. The amendments also extended RCEF until 2031 and increased its allocation to P30 billion, half of which is put under the president’s discretion. Most prominently, it enabled the P20/kilo “BBM rice” showcase for limited people, at limited times, in limited places. This price subsidy is funded from rice tariff collection and hence is itself dependent upon imports. Since it is not done in conjunction with a comprehensive and thorough-going program to reform and develop the local rice industry in the larger context of a national industrial policy, it is impossible to sustainably expand and extend. 

As long as local rice production stagnates or deteriorates, any drop in prices due to a surge in imports can only be short-term and lead to renewed price hikes. There are no shortcuts to food security.

Local production did not improve despite increased government spending. The GAA allotment for the NRP has increased from P7 billion annually before RLL to an average of P22 billion under it. The entire rice tariff collection, adding another P22 billion on average yearly since 2019, was also supposedly used for the rice industry and agriculture in general. The lower tariffs due to EO 62 have also cost the government a whopping P35 billion in revenue losses, not even a year since. This is more than the total revenue losses due to the lower tariffs from the previous four years, from 2019 to 2023!

Yet, palay production has remained stagnant at about 19 million MT annually since 2017. Evidently, the funds were not spent for effective and direct subsidies from which rice producers benefitted. The utilization of these billions should be investigated thoroughly. Consequently, local rice production has stagnated too and has not kept up with rising consumption, paving the way for increasing importation.

	2019-2021			2022	2023	2024	2025
Rice tariff collection	P46.6 billion			P22.74 billion	P30 billion	P34 billion	—
Revenue loss due to lower tariffs	P25 billion					P35 billion (as of March)

Surges in rice importation also depress local palay prices, further diminishing rice farming incomes. The average annual net returns of rice farmers have already decreased by P6,268/hectare between 2018 and 2023.

Case study: Rice farmer costs and returns

Item	Value		Amount	Subtotal
Gross harvest	60 cavans		x57/kg/cavan xP16/kg farmgate	P54,720
Land preparation	P8,000			P8,000
Seeds	P1,500/sack		x3 sack/hectare	P4,500
Fertilizer	P1,700/cavan		x6 cavans	P10,200
Molluscicide	P1,000/bottle		x1 bottle	P1,000
Herbicide	P1,500/bottle		x1 bottle	P1,500
Insecticide	P800/bottle		x1 bottle	P800
Fungicide	P400/pack		x4 packs	P1,600
Combine harvester	10% of harvest		6 cavans	P5,472
Total production cost			or 36.3 cavans	P33,072
Net harvest before deductions			23.7 cavans	P21,648
Land rent	13 cavans		xP912/cavan	P11,856
Hauling	P50/sako		x60 sacks	P3,000
Combine harvester way	P500			P500
Interest on input loans	P200/fertilizer		x6 cavans	P1,200
	P50/pesticide		x3 bottles	P150
Total deductions			18.3 cavans (77% of net harvest)	P16,706
Farmer’s share			5.4 cavans (23% of net harvest)	P4,942

The bigger and more frequent losses have economically displaced and discouraged many rice farmers. More and more are compelled to look for livelihoods outside of rice farming or agriculture in general. These losses, bankruptcies, and displacements affect not just their families but the entire nation. The expertise of veteran farmers, forged in decades of practice, cannot be replaced overnight. Nor the traditional training undertaken by the family unit. The rehabilitation of lands converted to other crops or non-agricultural uses will also take years. These effects of the RLL are hidden by government theatrics. 

On the other hand, monopolists in rice importation and trading gain hugely and quickly in the background. As importation volumes nearly tripled, its value more than doubled in the past six years. Between 2018 and 2023 the value of rice imports ballooned from USD 737,000 to USD 1.6 billion. At the same time, the number of importers lessened. In 2019, there were 217 importers, the biggest 10 of which imported 24% of the total volume. By 2024, there were only 154 importers, the top 10 already importing 40%. Traders also took bigger ground. In 2024, commercial traders already control 56% of the total rice stock from only 39% in 2022. In 2023, wholesalers took 44% or P18.90/kilo, the largest share, of the P42.80/kilo final rice price. In contrast, only 15% or P6.50/kilo goes to farmers as profit.

All-around agri crisis

Other agricultural sectors are not faring any better amid the Marcos Jr regime’s ineptitude and dogmatic adherence to bankrupt neoliberal economics. The local production of major crops and animals all face chronic stagnation or decline. And the ruling government’s response has been to either prop up importers or big corporate operators, at the expense of local small producers. 

Sugar production remains on a downtrend. The local industry, second most protected to rice, has faced tightening pressure as the use of imported sugar alternatives (such as corn-based sweeteners) increases. Citing persistent losses, the 97-year-old CADPI sugar mill closed in 2023, affecting more than 18,000 various workers.

Powerful sugar barons have so far lobbied successfully to stump further sugar liberalization, regulate sweetener imports, and retain sweetener tariffs. With the support of Marcos Jr, they are pushing for the revival of Philsucor (abolished in 2018) to regain access to more funds. Local sugar monopolists continue to assert its dominance against importers.

Meanwhile, sugar farm workers remain dirt poor. Farm wages in the sugar capital Negros get as low as P82/day under the predominant piece-rate (pakyawan) system.

Case study: Piece-rate wages of sugarworkers

Work	Wage rate	Daily equivalent	Notes
Seedling making	P1,000/laksa3	3 workers in 1 day = P333/worker/day	More seedlings are used if the plot is planted for the first time.
Planting	P1,000/laksa	3 workers in 2 days = P167/worker/day
Weeding	P2,460/hectare	10 workers in 3 days = P82/worker/day	Done three times per season.
Plowing	P1,060/hectare	6 workers in 1 day = P177/worker/day	Thrice/season. Only males with their own carabaos are hired.
Fertilizer application	P1,235/hectare	15 workers in 1 day = P82/worker/day	Thrice/season.
Reaping and loading	P1,555/ton	10 workers finish 10 tons in 2 days =  P77.75/worker/day	Only males are hired.

Another major exporter, the coconut industry also faces pressure from the increasing production of palm oil (an alternative to coconut oil), especially in Indonesia and Malaysia but also locally. Domestic coconut production has remained stagnant since the 2010-2014 cocolisap outbreak. The Marcos Jr regime pins the development of the coconut industry through the Coco Levy Privatization Act as it revised its industry plan. The coco levy trust fund is however vulnerable to (re)plunder, among other issues (see Plunder section). Coconut farmers remain among the poorest nationwide.

Smallholders continue to produce the majority of swine but the Marcos Jr regime’s repopulation program has also favored large operators. The DA has announced a P1-billion program to provide 30,000 female pigs to large farms. The regime has also not shied away from imports. Pork imports have been increasing since at least 2022 as Marcos Jr continued Duterte’s lower tariff schemes. That year, the pork import dependency rate was already at 30%. This May 2025, the DA has also begun the process of further reducing pork tariffs.

Philippine agriculture overall is adversely affected by the climate crisis. Agricultural losses due to calamities (typhoons, drought, etc.) reached almost P60 billion just in 2024. In contrast, the Marcos Jr regime’s response mostly only took the form of ayuda distributions amounting to just around P50 million in each select province. The country’s much-touted hosting of the Loss and Damage Fund in 2024 has so far been an empty spectacle as Marcos Jr grovels for contributions.

Plundering with impunity

A true Marcos, plunder and corruption issues hound the Bongbong regime.

VP Sara Duterte’s misuse of confidential funds has led to her historic impeachment by Congress in 2025. Alongside this, pork barrel particularly in the 2025 budget received heavy public criticism. Marcos Jr vetoed some of its parts, again as cosmetic cover-up to almost P2 trillion of presidential pork in the form of “special purpose”, unprogrammed, and confidential funds, including the P15 billion added under the RLL amendments.

The Marcoses were also exonerated of its past plunder. A historical injustice, the remaining eight coco levy cases against the elder Marcos couple, Juan Ponce Enrile, and Maria Clara Lobregat, were all dismissed in 2024. The Sandiganbayan ruled in favor of the Marcoses due to the “inordinate delay” in the proceedings, citing its 2021 dismissal of the coco levy cases against Danding Cojuangco. ⁴

Relatedly, the implementation of the Coco Levy Privatization Act enacted in 2021 has been shrouded in mystery. A special audit adjustment determined the amount of coco levy assets to be P111 billion in 2022. In a 2023 legislative hearing, the then PCA administrator estimated that P80 billion in cash assets were already under the trust fund, with a measly 34% utilization rate. Since then, there has been no full report on how the fund has been used across the 16 offices to which it was distributed. Calls for transparency and people’s oversight have been left unheard. 

Described as similar to the coco levy scam, Marcos Jr railroaded the Maharlika Wealth Fund in 2023 despite broad opposition. The majority (P50 billion) of its P75 billion initial seed fund came from the Landbank, a government-owned bank supposed to serve agricultural and rural development. 

In February 2025, the MWF announced plans to invest USD 100 million in a USD 1-billion investment scheme with the Thai agri-conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP). With approximately USD 179 million worth of investments in 20 locations nationwide, CP is currently the largest foreign TNC in Philippine agriculture. It is Thailand’s largest private company of any type and the largest animal feed company in the world. While the terms have not been released, the MWF-CP partnership is a public investment for corporate profit – particularly for one of the biggest foreign companies, in competition against numerous small Filipino agri-food enterprises. In a separate deal, CP also sealed last April 2025 a P1.2 billion Landbank loan to build a 15-hectare feed mill complex in Ilagan, Isabela.

Covering up state forces

The Marcos Jr regime presents itself as respectful of human rights especially compared to the past Duterte regime. In 2024, it issued EO 23 which created a body on trade union rights violations, and AO 22 which created a “superbody” on human rights. A new “Human Rights Plan” was also launched before the end of that year.⁵ In February 2025, it took pride after the Philippines exited the FATF grey list. 

But human rights violations – especially against peasants, the rural poor, and their advocates – have continued under the Marcos Jr regime. Behind the attempt to deodorize and cover it up, state terror persists nationwide, especially in the countryside. Karapatan has documented thousands of cases of human rights violations under the Marcos Jr regime. Between July 2022 and the end of 2024, there have been 119 victims of extrajudicial killings; 86 of which (72%) are peasants, of which three are KMP members. Seven of the 14 forcibly disappeared are also peasants. Most of the killings occurred in predominantly backward agricultural regions of Negros (48 cases), Bicol (36) and Eastern Visayas (13).

The Fausto farming family was massacred in Himamaylan, Negros Occidental last June 2023. Accused as members of the NPA before being massacred by the 94th IBPA, they were then branded as victims of the NPA after their death. In Sorsogon, the entire Tolentino farming family, including a two-year-old, was disappeared last April 2025.

Marcos Jr continued the despicable “whole-of-nation approach” (WONA) institutionalized by the Duterte regime through EO 70. WONA subordinates the civilian government to military objectives. It weaponizes government resources against organizations, individuals, and ideas arbitrarily branded as “terrorists.” It created the nefarious NTF-ELCAC which delegitimizes critics, activists, and progressives through red-tagging and terrorist-labelling. The vilification incites and justifies attacks against them. Worse, Marcos Jr issued MC 83 last May 2025. MC 83 aims to widen and deepen the NTF-ELCAC’s influence over the work and budgets of civilian offices.

Among the more outrageous cases of red-tagging was the nationwide deployment of caskets against the Makabayan Coalition on the last day of the 2025 electoral campaign period.

Military rule remains prevalent in rural areas. The AFP undertakes combat or focused military operations in various municipalities. This is most striking in areas where there are ongoing land disputes or opposition to destructive projects. Here, civilian populations are subjected to military operations such as aerial bombing and strafing, artillery shelling, and hamletting. Between 2022 and 2024, there have been almost 47,000 documented victims in 19 bombing incidents. Nine of these occurred in Cagayan, eight in Oriental Mindoro, and seven in Bukidnon; provinces where several big mining operations and plantations are located. Meanwhile, more than 63,000 faced indiscriminate firing. 

Soldiers occupy even more villages under the RCSP. Armed forces set up camps inside civilian communities and/or public facilities like barangay halls and schools. From there, they launch psychological warfare against the local populace to fabricate “surrenderees” under the E-CLIP. There have been almost 7,800 victims of the use of public spaces for military purposes, and 560 victims of forced/fake surrenderees documented under the Marcos Jr regime.

In occupied villages, soldiers demand that residents “clear their names,” they hold house visits, call for red-tagging meetings, offer and give bribes, issue threats, and torture people. They instigate drinking and gambling sessions, and commit abuses against women. Public resources are used to buy the cooperation of local officials and cover up military abuses. The BDP is directly allotted for this, but also funds for ayuda, medical services, etc. In some areas, the military mutates existing local organizations into or manufactures new counter-organizations. These groups pose as “civilian” fronts under the guidance, control, and support of the military and in service of its terror campaign.

The 31st CMO Special Company of the Philippine Army has been hounding farmers in Aloguinsan, Cebu since 2022, forcing farmers to surrender as rebels. In December 2024, the soldiers encamped in a public slaughterhouse near the peasant community. The scare tactics even escalated during the electoral campaign. In April 2025, KMP Cebu leaders received death threats in the form of small caskets with their photos and names.

Many or the sum of these cases constitute violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, and/or crimes against humanity. 

Threats, harassment, and intimidation (THI) remain the most widespread violation and means to spread terror. Victims of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and abduction are turned into examples against those who “refuse to cooperate.” More than 3.7 million individuals have been documented to face THIs under the current regime.

Even the legal system is weaponized for repression. Peasant struggle faces criminalization. Cases like trespassing and theft are filed against farmers asserting their land rights. SAMMBAT leaders in Masinloc, Zambales were arrested and slapped with disobedience and resistance for defending against demolition and eviction in June 2025. The same month, artist advocates propagating peasant calls for land distribution from TEKA MUNA were arrested in Imus, Cavite.

But lawfare has been made more monstrous under the ATL (Anti-Terror Law) and TFPSA (Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act). Through these, revolutionaries and activists are arbitrarily designated as terrorists or “sympathizers”. At least 166 individuals and 17 organizations have been unjustly accused or charged under these two laws. Other trumped-up charges filed against activists include non-bailable cases of illegal possession of explosives filed after illegal arrests and raids based on planted evidence or fabricated testimonies. There are currently 762 political prisoners nationwide, 154 of whom were arrested under the Marcos Jr regime.

KMP Secretary General Ronnie Manalo was charged with trumped-up cases of terrorism and illegal possession of explosives after a fake raid and evidence-planting by the 80th IB in June 2024. The charges were ultimately dismissed by the prosecutor after two months. Danggayan Cagayan Valley (CV) peasant leader Isabelo Adviento was also slapped with new trumped-up terrorism charges in April this year. This comes after the January 2025 dismissal of earlier false cases against him for which he was detained in 2020. Amanda Echanis, another CV peasant organizer and artist, remains detained over similar charges. 

National peasant women federation Amihan continues to face the unfounded freezing of their bank account over fake terror-financing charges since 2021. In Negros, peasant community development workers from PDG were arrested in January 2025 and slapped with trumped-up terror-financing charges, following months of red-tagging and harassment. In Bicol, the rural NGO FARMERS Inc. also continues to experience surveillance, harassment, and vilification. 
Aside from the huge damage to lives, livelihoods, and the environment, the violations produce a broad chilling effect. This damages not just the progressives targeted but the entire nation’s democratic space. It silences critical voices and entrenches the prevailing rotten social system.

Selling PH sovereignty

The Marcos Jr regime sells the country’s sovereignty in various ways to cinch US support for its rule at the expense of the people including the peasantry. It has allowed the US to not just drag the Philippines in its intensifying rivalry with China, but for the country to be its most rabid stooge in its “island-chain” war tactics in the region.

Since 2023, the Marcos Jr regime has signed and is seeking to sign various new military agreements with the US and its regional “allies” (like Japan and South Korea). Up to 500 US-led military exercises are being held in the Philippines each year. In 2023, the Marcos Jr regime added four new EDCA sites for the US military, three of which face Taiwan.⁶ Since 2024, it has also hosted US missile systems capable of reaching mainland China from the Philippines. 

The intensified US military deployment and mobilization stoke tension in the WPS and the entire so-called “Indo-Pacific”, provoking further militarism from China. This in turn is overplayed and used by the US to justify its own militarism. 

All the US-led military exercises and operations harm peasant livelihoods and the environment, not just in the WPS but in the entire country. In May 2025, fishing was banned in Zambales for the Balikatan exercises, affecting more than 6,000. Before that, a US spy plane crashed in a Maguindanao farm in February 2025.

The Marcos Jr regime remains unshaken of “free trade” dogma amid the increasing protectionism of the US and other countries. And despite the fact that the neoliberal insistence on “free trade” since the 1980s has underdeveloped Philippine agriculture and the entire economy.

The regime’s response to Trump’s April 2025 “liberation day” tariffs is to immediately negotiate for a zero-tariffs trade deal. Marcos Jr also supported the Philippines’ membership in the RCEP, ratified in February 2023. In September 2024, Marcos Jr signed an FTA with South Korea and it continues to prepare to join the CPTPP. Yet, total PH trade decreased by 7% between 2022 and 2024. Philippine agricultural trade in particular remains in deep deficit (P12 billion in 2024) as agricultural imports increased, 85% of which are rice and corn.
Government debt has ballooned under Marcos Jr to P17 trillion as of February 2025. Aside from the infrastructure mania, a huge chunk of foreign loans is acquired by the Marcos Jr regime in the name of peasants. The largest of which so far is the USD 600 million additional WB loan for the PRDP in 2023. In February 2025, the USD 113-million DAR-IFAD VISTA project was also launched. The USD 1-billion WB loan for DA’s Philippine Sustainable Agriculture Transformation (PSAT) to be signed in July 2025 is set to become the country’s single largest-ever loan. The DA also continues to seek a USD 500-million JICA loan for rice post-harvest.

The peasant struggle shines

The worsening crisis of Philippine agriculture, especially after four decades of heeding neoliberal economics continued blindly by the Marcos Jr regime, only underscores the more urgent need for genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization. Persistently, the Filipino peasant struggle for these shines on. After holding its 9th Congress in 2023, KMP celebrates four decades of bright victories and struggles this 2025. As the nation’s agrarian and agricultural crisis worsen, the peasant movement is regaining momentum nationwide. 

Varying anti-feudal struggles, land assertion, and bungkalan campaigns continue nationwide. In March 2025, AMGL led a week-long protest camp in front of the DAR Central Office, the first time since 2020. Participated by about 300 farmers from Tarlac, Bulacan, and Zambales, it raised awareness on issues of land conversion and compelled the department to act on agrarian cases. AMBALA leads a renewed campaign to reclaim victories in HL. AMB continues to develop the Bungkalan and Bagsakan efforts of farmers in the disputed Araneta Estate in SJDM. Bagsakan initiatives have also been held in Rizal and Cebu. In Bukidnon, BTL continues to defend its 200-hectare bungkalan against CMU. In Negros, the KMP regional chapter held a province-wide anti-feudal forum and caravan with more than 350 peasant participants in April 2025, the first since 2018. KMP Negros leads scores of land cultivation areas on the island. The same month, KASAMA-TK launched AKKD, a multisectoral alliance against land conversion and demolition. With provincial chapters in Cavite, Batangas, and Rizal, it consolidates and raises various local struggles going on for years. This complements the AMK, an alliance for peasant compensation convened in Batangas earlier. KASAMA-TK continues to lead several bungkalans such as Lupang Ramos and Lupang Tartaria in Cavite. In North Luzon, peasants lead campaigns against huge mining operations and fake tree-planting programs. KMP Bicol conducted an Earth Day Fair also in April. Bicolano peasants and young advocates have been more active in campaigning on environmental issues, especially since the 2024 Bicol Environmental Youth Camp.

Fisherfolks under Pamalakaya are militantly facing the encroachment of corporate fishing on municipal coastlines, with the “Atin ang 15-kilometro” campaign, alongside ongoing struggles against reclamation and other anti-fisher projects. It led several fluvial protests such as against the militarization of the WPS, Manila Bay reclamation, and BuhaWind Floating Wind Farm project. 

The anti-fascist struggle of and for peasants perseveres. Quick-reaction, fact-finding, and solidarity missions are continually held in communities facing militarization and various attacks. The demand for justice for peasant leaders Randy Echanis, Joseph Canlas, the victims of massacres in Mendiola, Hacienda Luisita, and Kidapawan, among others, and other martyrs of the peasant movement are highlighted in several activities and materials. The campaign for the freedom of political prisoners, such as Amanda Echanis and various artists continually develop. A Hands Off campaign against KMP Chairperson Danilo “Ka Daning” Ramos took off early in 2024. This is shortly followed by similar campaigns for Jeverlyn Seguin of KASAMA-TK, Maggie Seva of KMB, and Cagayan Valley activists.

Tanggol Magsasaka is being reinvigorated nationwide. It led and participated in five FFSMs all over Luzon just in 2024. Regional initiatives have also followed since the TM Conference in November 2022. Most remarkable is TM Southern Tagalog which has been exemplary in performing human rights work among the peasantry and rural poor. TM Cagayan Valley has also begun issuing public statements recently. A renewed Defend Bagsakan Farmers campaign was launched in response to the June 2025 attacks of the 80th IB in SJDM, Bulacan. TM has also participated in the public inquiries launched by the CHR on red-tagging and it was among the organizations who met with UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan, who called on the Marcos Jr regime to condemn red-tagging. All over the country, the human rights work of various local peasant organizations perseveres.

The peasant movement is also active in anti-imperialist struggles. It has led broad and sustained campaigns against various neoliberal policies pushed by imperialist powers, such as the WB-funded SPLIT and the RLL rooted in the WTO. KMP was among the petitioners who successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a Writ of Kalikasan in April 2023 against GM crops pushed by agri-TNCs. In May of that year, the Bantay RCEP Monitoring Framework was also launched. In Cagayan Valley, peasants participate in broad protests against US-led war games. At sea, Pamalakaya leads fisherfolks in the fight to demilitarize the WPS. 

All over the country, the peasant masses and other rural poor seek guidance, leadership, organization, and representation. At the same time, a broad mass of the people consistently express and provide support for the peasantry. These desires are reflected in the 2025 elections where Ka Daning led a historic run as the sole farmer-senatoriable. Competing with some dynasties and celebrities who have deep pockets, he gained 4.1 million votes amid intense state vilification and attacks, electoral fraud, and insufficient resources. Ka Daning also repeatedly ranked high in school surveys, indicating youth support. The peasant movement and the struggle for genuine land reform reached a broader mass during the electoral contest. 

Various networks for peasant advocacy agrarian reform continue to develop, especially among the youth, students, and artists, but also among consumers, religious people, and lawyers. 

KMP has advocated for the passage of crucial legislation in Congress. Foremost is the GARB and proposed RIDA, but farmers have also campaigned for the HR Defenders Bill, Billionaire Wealth Tax, and National Minimum Wage. Peasant leaders have figured in several legislative inquiries regarding the RLL, agricultural smuggling, and other issues. Ka Daning was also among the petitioners in the impeachment complaints in Congress against VP Sara Duterte.

The last years of Marcos Jr’s term will be more tumultuous as conflicts between both local and foreign ruling class factions intensify. The contest between rivaling imperialist powers will reverberate locally. 

The rotten domestic ruling system represented by Marcos Jr will increasingly expose its own anti-peasant, anti-people, and anti-national character. The opportunism of rivaling trapo and imperialist factions will turn more brazen and more desperate as the spoils to be split become more concentrated. The economy can only worsen. The masses will increasingly seek explanations and solutions. The rotten kadiliman and kasamaan camps, and their multiplying sub-groups, will point fingers and take jabs at each other, presenting themselves as the way forward. But both will obfuscate the real source of the crisis and the genuine path to change. 

It is therefore imperative for the peasant and entire national democratic movement to reach the masses widely and solidify the Filipino people’s unity. The entire bureaucrat-capitalist and semicolonial state must be exposed. The ruling Marcos clique should be held accountable and further isolated for its hollow promises, sabotage of Philippine agriculture, HRVs, and sell-out of the country’s sovereignty, among others. The Duterte gang should likewise be tried for its various crimes against the people. It is only just for VP Sara to be impeached for betraying public trust and plunder, and the elder Rodrigo be jailed for his various wars against the poor. 

The world is in an era of heightening resistance and resolute struggle in all its forms. It is upon the militant Filipino peasant and peoples movements to meet the call of the times and strengthen its organizational mettle nationwide. #

Footnotes

1.  Derived from the following news reports: https://pia.gov.ph/1-421-cordi-farmers-receive-certificate-of-condonation-483-get-land-titles/,  https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1229384, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1239634, https://www.dar.gov.ph/articles/news/split-news-alert-dar-condones-p57-798-million-agrarian-debts-of-1483-arbs-in-bataan-bulacan-and-aurora, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1233302, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1234373,  https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1233192, https://pia.gov.ph/pbbm-to-lead-first-ever-cocrom-distribution-in-calabarzon/, https://palawan-news.com/over-1000-palawan-arbs-receive-land-title-relief/, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1238730, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1240407, https://www.dar.gov.ph/articles/news/split-news-alert-close-to-p1-billion-agrarian-debts-of-6125-arbs-condoned-in-negros-occidental, https://www.dar.gov.ph/articles/news/negros-oriental-farmers-receive-condonation-certificates-land-titles, https://www.leytesamardailynews.com/arbs-from-samar-are-first-recipients-of-cocrom-in-e-visayas/, https://www.dar.gov.ph/articles/news/dar-pinawalang-bisa-ang-utang-ng-189-arbs-sa-zamboanga-del-norte, https://www.dar.gov.ph/articles/news/split-news-alert-dar-distributes-certificates-of-condonation-land-titles-in-northern-mindanao, https://pco.gov.ph/news_releases/pbbm-emancipates-farmers-in-davao/, https://www.gmanetwork.com/regionaltv/news/105484/loans-of-over-18t-farmers-in-davao-soccsksargen-condoned/story/, https://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php/articles/1240468
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2.  As of 2022, RE accounts for 29% of local production capacity and 32% of final supply. ↩︎
3. 10,000 pieces ↩︎
4.  The PCGG downplayed the dismissals, saying that the government lost “almost nothing” – an unsurprising opinion considering that the PCGG Chairperson and three of its four commissioners are now all Marcos Jr appointees. ↩︎
5. The text of this plan has not yet been released to the public. ↩︎
6.  The sites are in: 1) Camilo Osias Naval Base in Sta. Ana, Cagayan; 2) Lal-lo Airport in Lal-lo, Cagayan; 3) Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela and 4) Balabac Island, Palawan.
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