Quezon City, Philippines, 13 May 2009 - Children and child rights advocates led by SALINLAHI Alliance for Children’s Concerns marched down Batasan Road this morning in an expression of solidarity for the peasants camped out in front of the House of Representatives pushing for the enactment of the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.  “The long struggle for land for the tillers has reached this generation since Spanish colonization and until now, landlessness remains prevalent and a root cause of poverty in the rural areas,” stressed Ms. Sophia Garduce, spokesperson of the alliance.

Garduce also said that the failure of Marcos’ PD 27 and Aquino's CARP, further made hundreds of thousands of peasant families and their children landless. “Clearly, this is one reason why many peasant children are forced to take part in exploitative family labor.”

The group said that the government’s stimulus package programs purportedly aimed at alleviating poverty and hunger, such as the noodle for school and other dole-out programs, overlooked the basic needs of poor families, which are secure jobs and decent wages, land for the farmers and appropriate technological training and support for them. “Landlessness means poverty, and to resolve poverty, land should be distributed to the tillers. All efforts of government in addressing poverty will remain futile, for as long as the government turns a deaf ear to the decades-old clamor of peasants,” Garduce said.   “It’s high time the genuine agrarian reform bill, that has been crafted from the tears, blood and  sweat of  the peasant struggle is passed into law,” she added.

The children’s delegation led by SALINLAHI was met by a festive mood of the peasant camp-out together with the peasant children. Urban poor children under Salinlahi willingly joined the solidarity march to show their support for their rural peers and they exchanged views on their respective situations. “What we witnessed today is a child-to-child exchange of experiences, which is a very significant learning process for the children from both rural and  urban poor communities. Solidarity among children is just as potent as solidarity among adults, and this we have to foster and encourage for generations to come,” Garduce ended. ###