Agrarian reform beneficiaries belonging to Task Force Mapalad (TFM) lofted streamers and chanted "Justice" and "Genuine land reform" as they marched April 26 in the funeral caravan of Rico Adeva, a TFM organizer.

TFM is a national peasant federation with 300 affiliate organizations on Negros, an island well known for sugar cane production as well as its troubled history between plantation owners and workers.

Bacolod City, 465 kilometers (290 miles) southeast of Manila, is the capital of Negros Occidental (western), the larger of two provinces that cover the island.

On April 15, three unidentified men reportedly emerged from cane fields and rushed towards Adeva and his wife Nenita as they were returning home to Bagtic community in Silay City, just north of Bacolod. The men solely targeted Adeva, who died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds in his head and body.

The 39-year-old community organizer was the second of three TFM activists killed on Negros in less than a month.

On March 27, two unidentified men shot dead Vicente Denila, a 56-year-old organizer, in Tanjay City, Negros Oriental (eastern). And on April 22, one week after Adeva's death, farmer leader Porferio Maglasang, a 42-year-old father of nine, was slain in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.

In a statement issued on April 28, TFM spokesperson Edna Sobrecaray urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to order an investigation into Adeva's killing and other violence surrounding agrarian reform.

In an earlier statement, TFM president Jose Angeles described Adeva as a "slim, frail-looking man" who "alarmed big landowners" because he helped 3,000 farmers in 40 Negros Occidental haciendas (plantations) to obtain certificates of land ownership.

TFM, many of whose members on Negros are beneficiaries of the national agrarian reform program, organized a funeral Mass for Adeva early morning of April 26 in Silay. After the Mass, his funeral caravan left for Bacolod City, 15 kilometers (about 10 miles) away, with three of Adeva's five children riding in the funeral car as they clutched a photograph of their slain father.

About 3,000 farmers and farm workers followed the car bearing Adeva's coffin. The caravan stopped briefly at the provincial legislature, where 3,000 more farmers had assembled. From there, all 6,000 farmers proceeded on foot.

The demonstrators made two other brief stops at the city's Hall of Justice and San Sebastian Cathedral before halting for a rally in front of the provincial office of the Department of Agrarian Reform. There they demanded the dismissal of officials who, Sobrecaray said, are "deliberately obstructing and delaying land distribution in Negros Occidental, resulting in beneficiaries' further vulnerability to landowner reprisal."

Adeva was later buried back in his native Silay.

Lani Factor, a TFM campaign advocacy officer, told UCA News that TFM officers will meet on May 4 "to form a team to conduct an independent investigation" into Adeva's killing. According to Factor, some human rights lawyers, elected officials and Church people will attend that meeting.

Asked about possible church participation, Father Aniceto Buenafe Jr., social action director of Bacolod diocese, told UCA News on May 4 that his office is ready to take part in the independent investigation and just waits for the group's formal invitation.

"It has been a long standing position of the Church to condemn all killings, and we are seriously saddened about the latest atrocities in Negros," Father Buenafe said. He added that Bishop Vicente Navarra of Bacolod and the bishops of the three other dioceses on Negros Island "have always stood behind farmers calling for genuine land reform."

TFM worker Mary Ann Rivas told UCA News that TFM leaders will set up meetings this month with Bishop Navarra to seek the Church's backing for the probe and a "stepped up" campaign to stop agrarian-related violence in Negros.

"Our members appreciate the church's statements because they uphold the poor farmers' struggle for land distribution," Rivas told UCA News. She also said she believes declarations from Church leaders "usually get the government's or landowners' attention and inspire support from vast sectors."

Father Buenafe acknowledged that farming communities on the island "hunger for progress and peace." His prayer, he said, is "for our peasants to carry on asserting their inherent right to own a piece of land to till, and to remain united in action and prayer."

Under former president Corazon Aquino, the government began implementing the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in 1988. It was designed to distribute land to about 8.5 million landless Filipino peasants.

TFM president Angeles claims that landowners on Negros "are intensifying their resistance to CARP" because the program is due to expire in 2008.

In a pastoral message in 2003, Bishop Navarra and the other three Negros prelates – Bishop John Du of Dumaguete, Bishop Patricio Buzon of Kabankalan, Bishop Jose Advincula of San Carlos – spoke against the "ineffective and slow implementation" of CARP that "has led to violent conflicts" on the island.