The Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN) or the Movement for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice was born as a tactical campaign platform to coordinate autonomous provincial-level rural reform movements in campaigning for the continuity of the existing government’s agrarian reform program which was set to expire in 2008. KATARUNGAN sustained its initiatives from then on as a horizontal organization in the Philippines that campaigns for various issues affecting rural communities.
Between 2008 and 2020, KATARUNGAN sustained various land rights initiatives in agrarian hotspots, which in the last ten years included more than 12,000 hectares of land being successfully redistributed in favor of around 8,000 farmers, amidst sustained trumped up charges, harassment, and physical attacks and killings of peasants.
The campaigns were also highlighted by successful initiatives to decriminalize peasant movements with the dismissal of more than 300 criminal cases against peasant leaders and members.
KATARUNGAN also organized two long peasant marches for the recovery of the anomalous 120-billion-peso coco levy fund in favor of small coconut farmers.
When Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) devastated the country in 2013, a major initiative of KATARUNGAN was the push for the right against exclusion from humanitarian assistance of Yolanda-affected communities, who were without land tenure security.
Related to this, KATARUNGAN also campaigned and successfully push for the release of land titles to some 3,000 farmer-survivors of Typhoon Yolanda, and for the government to formally initiate the titling of peasant–occupied lands as part of its typhoon recovery response.
KATARUNGAN was also in the forefront of the struggle against disaster capitalism in Sicogon Island in Carles, Iloilo, to stop the forcible eviction of 1,500 families of farmers and fishers versus the top real estate developer in the country’s effort to transform the island as a tourism paradise. The case continues to this day.
Since its formation, KATARUNGAN has explored food sovereignty and agroecology as viable alternatives to the current corporate dominated food system. In many of KATARUNGAN areas, sustainable food production is intertwined with environmental nurturance and oriented towards satisfying the food needs of local communities.
