ACOS

Alliance of Concerned Samareños

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The Need For A People’s Task Force

On Poverty Alleviation, Human Rights & Environmental
Protection

OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, THE SEVERE SUCCESSIONS OF DROUGHT AND TYPHOON,
coupled by intermittent outbreaks of crop infestation, have thoroughly exposed the extreme vulnerability
of Western Samar’s agricultural sector, especially given its most backward state. The government,
which has long been remiss in bringing about genuine reforms and in providing both immediate and
long-term assistance, has yet to make any decisive steps to protect and strengthen this sector. The
ongoing global economic crisis continue to undermine local food and cash crop production. All this
evidently has further raised poverty and hunger in the province to a distressingly high level. The recent
national socio-economic surveys which have once again placed Western Samar among the provinces
with the highest incidence of abject poverty and malnutrition merely validate and make this fact official.

In the past few months, foreign firms have renewed their drive to set up mining concessions over vast
areas in the province in complete disregard of an existing provincial ordinance which imposes a 50-year
moratorium on large-scale mining. Despite the resurgence of broad public clamour against the threat of
massive environmental degradation, peasant dislocation, and uninhibitted plunder of our national
patrimony, the indecisiveness of concerned line agencies and local governments has brought the
situation to a precarious stand-off.

The escalating military operations covering an extensively large part of Samar have, for the last two
months, already yielded quite a number of reports of human rights abuse. The prospect of another
Palparan scenario happening cannot at all be discounted.

Indeed, these are all urgent matters that deserve utmost attention.

ACOS realizes that in any serious attempt to address all these issues, it is imperative that the historical
roots of these problems and the inherent defects in the country’s economy, political system, culture and
foreign relations are layed bare and carefully examined. The sheer weight and complexity of the
challenge to decisively confront poverty, hunger, repression and environmental degradation furthermore
necessitate the concerted effort, the collective action, of the broadest possible alliance of various
concerned sectors.

While the national government, through its numerous agencies, and the local government units are all
expected to design and implement policies and programs to attend to all these concerrns, ACOS relies
on the lessons of history which prescribe that ultimately genuine change can be realized through the
active, unrelenting engagement of the most affected sectors— through the actual economic and political
empowerment of the people. And here ACOS is taking its cue— and much-needed inspiration— from
the gallant and organized ranks of the poor peasants of Western Samar who have, of late, intensified
their efforts to put forward their sharpest analyses of their plight and their most justified agenda and
concrete demands.

ACOS takes the initiative to provide venues for study and discussion for the purpose of consolidating
and giving active support to the various calls of the different sectors in the province with regard to
poverty, hunger, repression and the environment. This multi-sectoral caucus aims to:

1. Present the general situation of poverty and hunger in the province

especially in relation to the current plight of the peasants.

Outline the peasant agenda and demands with regard to real government
support for the agricultural sector, and to the genuine empowerment of
the peasant organizations for increased production and for the struggle
against anti-peasant policies and directions.

2. Review the experience of the broad legal democratic movement that

fought against rampant human rights abuses during the so-called
Palparan period in the province.

Plan out immediate measures to monitor the current human rights

situation and prepare a legal and parliamentary support system in the
light of the escalating militarization in the countryside of Samar and the
entire island.

3. Assess the current multi-sectoral struggle against large-scale foreign

mining in the province.

Formulate a coordinated campaign plan among the various sectors of the

province to reiterate the call that Samar is a no-mining zone, especially as
far as the provincial ordinance banning large-scale mining for 50 years is
concerned.

In so doing, ACOS transforms itself into a People’s Task Force on Poverty Alleviation, Human
Rights and Environmental Protection.

(draft by Ericson Acosta / Nov. 2010)