Protect the Land, Protect the Right to Food and Nutrition: Uphold Agrarian Reform in Sariaya, Philippines
An international statement issued in support of the 255 Sariaya farmers
We, the members and supporters of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, are deeply concerned about the Supreme Court’s September 2020 ruling that stripped 255 farmers in Sariaya, Quezon of ownership over the land they have tilled for decades. The Court’s decision rested on a 1982 Zoning Ordinance that local government itself had already set aside: In 2008, the Sariaya municipal council explicitly said that the ordinance lacked clear boundary delineations and could not serve as a basis for exempting lands from agrarian reform. That position was reaffirmed in 2018 by Section 9 of the 2018 Zoning Ordinance which upholds and respects the rights of Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) holders. The said section provides that all lots covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (or Republic Act 6657 (RA), as amended by RA 9700) shall remain agricultural and shall not be covered by any reclassification. To have that discredited document resurface as the legal foundation for reversing thirty years of agrarian reform is not just a legal error – it is a profound injustice to farming communities and constitutes a threat to the right to food and nutrition of the Sariaya farmers.
Before the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program was implemented in Sariaya in the 1990s‘, these farmers were tenants growing coconuts on landowner’s land. Today, as true agents of their territories and their lives, farmers produce rice, tomatoes, squash, eggplants, beans, and a range of vegetables on that same land that feeds more than 800,000 people across Metro Manila and Luzon, even during the COVID pandemic. Farmer incomes have more than tripled. Young people who had left for the cities are coming back to farm. Around 2,000 more people – traders, transport workers, farmhands – depend on agricultural land to sustain their livelihoods. The Sariaya case shows what genuine agrarian reform looks like when it works. But the Supreme Court ruling threatens to dismantle all of it, returning productive farmland to a former owner who may have sold the land to one of the richest corporations in the country for commercial purposes, while leaving families who built their lives around that land with nothing. It contradicts the Philippines’ obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (Articles 11, 11.2), UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (Articles 1, 2, 4, 5, 16), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Recommendation 34 (Paragraph 78), and the FAO Tenure Guidelines (Section 4.5, 4.5, 15), and it runs directly against the Philippine Constitution’s mandate to promote social justice and equity. The Sariaya case must also be read in the light of the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), in Cartagena, Colombia, in February 2026, which reaffirmed the need for states to implement agrarian reform policies, especially in the context of food system transformation and rising land concentration.
We acknowledge the steps the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council has taken, by forming a Technical Working Group (TWG), conducting a ground validation in May 2023, and moving toward a recommendation for the PARC Executive Committee (ExCom). The TWG’s own findings confirm what anyone visiting Sariaya can see: This land is agricultural, it is productive, it is feeding people, and it has promoted social justice by alleviating the condition of its tillers above the poverty threshold. That finding must be reflected honestly and completely in the report to be released on June 30, 2026 and presented to the ExCom. As of today, the report has not been released yet. The farmers, their families, and the communities that depend on Sariaya’s harvests deserve a report that tells the full story; including the outstanding legal questions, the human rights dimensions, and clear recommendations grounded in evidence. Anything less would be a failure of the process and of the people it is meant to serve.
We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, call on those with the authority to act to do so clearly and without further delay, in accordance with their human rights obligations to guarantee the right to food and nutrition of the farmers of Sariaya and their families.
DEMANDS
- For the PARC Executive Committee to immediately release the report of the PARC Technical Working group for the Philippines Government to act on the issue;
- For the PARC to immediately take steps for the reopening of the case to protect the rights of farmers including their rights to land, food, housing, livelihoods, among others.
- For the Philippines Government to exert measures that would ensure that farmers will enjoy peaceful possession of the lands they till and that no evictions proceedings will be initiated that will dispossess the farmers from their lands, housing and sources of livelihoods.
Endorsed by:
Alliance for Food Sovereignty – MENA (ASA-MENA)
Indigenous Women League Nepal – IWL Nepal
FIAN International
FIAN Belgium
FIAN Nepal
FIAN Switzerland
National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO)
Prasant Paikray, Spoke Person, Anti-Jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS), Odisha, India
UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternative), Bangladesh
Youth’s Forum for Protection of Human Rights, Manipur, India
Young People for Social Reform, Manipur, India
Individuals:
Nayakrishi Andolon
Farida Akhter
Dr. Colin Gonsalves, India
Prof. Dr. Anne C Bellows, Syracuse University
Herman Kumara
