Go with the Almighty Tiller, Ka Ruben Presilda

Occidental Mindoro lost a farmer leader that will be put to his final resting place in Barangay Central Public Cemetery tomorrow, November 14, 2020.

I remember the man well way back from my younger years. His voice rings last and hit the pages of national media when he spoke against the rice liberalization law last October 2019.  Speaking as national chairman of the Federation of Free Farmers or FFF, Ruben Presilda expresses scepticism in the country’s economic managers saying that they are the ones pursuing said law which is very disadvantageous to the farmers not only here in our province but all over the land.

Before that, in 2018, Ka Ruben, father of my former boss and erstwhile station manager of DZYM-AM Glovyn Presilda (now Alegrado), warned that the agriculture sector is about to lose revenue worth P60 billion per year if the rice tariffication bill is enacted, and warned that politicians could get their hands on the collected tariffs. That was Ka Ruben, a fighter who truly served.

The youthful Ruben who was just tied knots with the former Gloria Robles joined the FFF in 1969. History would lead us to information that the FFF is a prominent farmers’ organization and cooperative founded in 1953  by Jeremias U. Montemayor. With the help of Fr. Walter Hogan, S.J., and the Jesuits’ Institute of Social Order (ISO), Montemayor also sought to concretize the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

Ka Ruben was born in Samar but was raised in Manila. He studied in Saint Scholastica School for Boys and later enrolled at the well-known Torres High School in Tondo. He finished (BSBA) Commerce at the University of the East. He migrated to San Jose, Occidental Mindoro when he married his teacher wife in 1967. He became a farmer advocate since then and stood with the working class in their struggle for land reform during Marcos years. 

Ka Ruben lived for five decades for the cause of the farmers and all the programs and policies for the good of the peasantry. He had been close lieutenant of then agriculture secretary Leonardo Q. Montemayor  and helped his principal in accomplishing growth and development of agriculture which is the life-blood of our economy. He will be laid to rest one day before the province he considered home will celebrate its 70th founding anniversary.

In 1988, a year after the so-called EDSA revolution, he was appointed board member of the province. Though he did not pursue his political career for reasons only known to him, he held various chairmanships in many farmers’ organizations and councils that are related to agriculture. He also served as regional chairman of the Agriculture and Fishery Council, among others. Moreover, he also held the chairmanship for the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council from Corazon C. Aquino up to Rodrigo R. Duterte.

He succumbed to massive stroke in Mamburao while having a meeting on taxation at the Farmers’ Training Center at the Provincial Capitol Compound with the provincial treasurer last November 6, 2020.

He died with his farmer’s shoes on, so to speak.

Your life is in itself is a bountiful harvest. The stewards of the soil will surely miss you. 

Farewell, Ka Ruben.

 

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(Photo of Maam Glo and Ka Ruben from Glovyn P. Alegrado's Facebook page)

 

 

 

McCarthyism vs. Arts in the Time of Turmoil

Last Tuesday’s (November 3, 2020) investigation on red-tagging by the Philippine Senate reminds me of the October 1947 hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC on the alleged involvement of some movie personalities in the Communist Party of America. I read about it in the 80s.

That was when McCarthyism invades the very fiber of American society. It was a raucous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs although a huge number of them, in fact, do not belong to the Communist Party.

"May tinatawag po na underground groups sa hanay ng mga manunulat, sa hanay ng mga artista, sa showbiz," a witness said in a Senate hearing yesterday. "Hindi ko na sasabihin yung mga pangalan nila pero ang mga pelikula nila ay [inaudible], 'Maynila sa Kuko ng Agila' at 'Walang Himala,'" he further said.

As a movie fan, this mixing up made my head twirl!

Around 15,000 families in the island province of Catanduanes, some province in the regions of Cordillera, Bicol and Southern Tagalog were affected by the recent typhoon. In Catanduanes, which is directly hit by TS Rolly, is in urgent need of food and water. The devastated island seeks aid, power and telco restoration in super typhoon’s aftermath. Yet, in the halls of the Philippine Senate that very day, McCarthyism prevailed over recovery from disaster, such as relief and rehabilitation missions.

As the hearing in the Senate transpires, the Philippines’ COVID-19 reached 387,161 and additional 1,772 cases plus 49 new deaths was reported by the Department of Health (DOH) when that man appeared before the Senate hearing Tuesday.

To the Filipino McCarthyists, as alleged, are hiding in the government program called National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (TF-ELCAC). They have included as targets of red-tagging and red-scare our patriotic artists. 

History tells us that Joseph McCarthy was halted by then President Dwight Eisenhower. Red-tagging and red-scare will die and fade away in the long run when the righteous people appear from the political horizon at any given time and situation in the future. That is if we will sustainably expose and oppose such drastic acts detrimental to our enjoyment of our basic human rights.

Arts and truth combined can defeat all fascistic lies in this country and anywhere in the world. Filipino artists will continue heighten their quest for the truth by continuing with their crafts, by proving that in art there is might.

We all look forward for a society freeing up the arts and the whole of Filipino nation. Under those conditions artistic expression, and all other forms of expressions, would be totally liberated from McCarthyism and tyranny in whatever form.

Take no notice of McCathyists, heed the aspirations of the people through arts but not through arms!

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 (Photo: Galloway)