Throughout his entire life, Enrico Cabanit has grown accustomed to the art of seed-planting-memorizing each and every step, closely following every ritual, and singing his paean to the heavens upon the coming of harvest. In the end, Ka Eric fell like the seeds that he has tendered with his firm yet loving hands, commingling with the earth with no intent of burying the past, but to instead allow new lives to sprout. This was the essence of his sacrifice.

On 24 April 2006, at around 6:10 in the evening, Ka Eric Cabanit and his daughter Daffodil was in the public market of Pandao buying what was probably their evening meal when they were shot by two identified men on top of a motorcycle. The father died instantly, sustaining at least five gunshot wounds in the head, practically destroying his skull. His daughter, on the other hand, was rushed to the Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum where she is now in ICU, suffering from a single gunshot wound that left a hole in her lungs.

The Secretary General of the Pambansang Ugnayan ng mga Nagsasariling Organisasyon sa Kanayunan (UNORKA), Ka Eric has just concluded a dialogue with a number officials from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) when he was gunned down by his assailants.

During the said interface, no less than the Undersecretary for Field Operations Narciso Nieto had pledged to issue an order to the DAR regional office to release a decision by today (25 April 2006) regarding UNORKA’s petition to place the 300-hectare citrus farms of the Worldwide Agricultural Development Corporation (WADECOR) under CARP.

He further promised to send a technical team to the said 1,023-hectare plantation at the soonest possible time to determine why it was exempted from the government’s land reform program by former DAR Secretary Ernesto Garilao.

It is for this reason that his colleagues in UNORKA have placed the blame on the politically influential Floirendo clan which has the sole motive for his murder, being the owners of WADECOR and other similar plantations in Davao del Norte.

Ka Eric’s death sets a very alarming precedent for agrarian reform advocates. It must be recalled that even prior to his murder, a spate killings were reported in April alone, targeting peasant leaders and rural activists known for their outspoken resistance to landlord domination.

And Ka Eric was no different. Not only was he a national leader of UNORKA, he was also member of our own Board of Directors and was very much active in the National Anti-Poverty Commission’s (NAPC) Farmers’ Sectoral Council-a legally created body that is tasked to monitor the government’s poverty alleviation programs. He was also a Presidium member of the Citizens’ Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) which sought to disclose the truth behind the now infamous “Hello, Garci” tapes.

We believe that the masterminds of Ka Eric’s murder have reckoned that with his death, it would create a chilling effect on the farmer communities in Davao del Norte, thus paralyzing their efforts to implement agrarian reform and secure the landowners’ continued control of their plantations.

But they are gravely mistaken. For those of us who are left behind are even more inspired to take the cudgels for Ka Eric, to seek the perpetrators and place them before the bar of justice and finally end the centuries-old struggle for land in favor of the farmers. This is our task and we will see to it to the end.

Indeed, we are the new plants that have sprouted from Ka Eric’s humble kernel.

Additional information

Unorka through Parrds is an active member of the Stop the New Round Coalition and works closely with other farmers groups in the Philippines on the issue of Agrarian Reform. Enrico Cabanit wa a participant to the World Forum on Agrarian Reform in Valencia two years ago as well as the LRAN sponsored Asia Land Rights Meeting in Chiang Mai. Ka Eric was also present during the Peasant Interaction with friends from FSPI-Via Campesina that SNR organized last year in Nueva Ecija.