In April 1969 I went down to Negros to live as a SACADA among the SACADAS. This is what I found there ...Each syllable that I write will be painful. But it will be true ...

In April 1969 I went down to Negros to live as a SACADA among the SACADAS.

I had with me a letter from Mr. Emerito G. Bagabaldo, the Executive Secretary to the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, addressed to the Federation’s Assistant Executive Secretary for Western Visayas, Mr. Rosendo Coruña, and it read:

IT IS A PLEASURE TO INTRODUCE THE BEARER, FR. ARSENIO JESENA, S. J., OF THE ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY.

FR. JESENA WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO LIVE AMONG THE SACADAS IN THE NEGROS FARMS — FROM SOUTH TO NORTH — TO REALLY KNOW THEIR ACTUAL LIVING CONDITIONS. A CROSS-SECTION OF SMALL, MIDDLE-SIZED AND BIGGER FARM LIVING CONDITIONS WILL BE MOST DESIRABLE. COULD YOU ARRANGE FOR THIS?

And so I lived among the SACADAS of Negros.

I worked in nine farms — as a SACADA. And when I was not actually working, I was busy shuttling from town to town, mixing with CONTRATISTAS and SACADAS and HACENDEROS.

When I returned to Manila in June, almost everyone who heard about my experience suggested that I write a report for publication. But I said no.

All I had wanted was the experience — nothing else. I did not want to publicize what I did. My data were limited. I did not want to offend anyone. And so I refused to write a report.

But now I am constrained to make that report.

This is not a quantitative scientific report. This is a qualitative personal recounting of what I experienced and what I learned during my stay in sugarland.

I write this with a heavy heart, for I know that because my data are limited, my report will be unfair to some; because the facts are embarrassing, my report will be offensive to others; because I cannot cite every exception, my report will seem to universalize when it does not intend to do so.

For all the shortcomings of this report I beg the pardon of one and all.

Each syllable that I write will be painful. But it will be true .


PART I

THE CONTRATISTA


The SACADA problem is usually blamed on the contratista. I will begin this report by stating facts about the contratista, facts revealed to me by the SACADAS with whom I worked.

The contratista signs a contract with the hacienda, promising to PROVIDE ADEQUATE LABOR for the cutting, loading, and hauling of the sugarcane to be milled. The hacienda provides the contratista with money so he can recruit laborers from Antique, Aklan, and Cebu. The contratista uses the money for the anticipo (cash advance) and for the transportation of the SACADAS.

The contratista supervises the work of the SACADAS. The hacienda does not pay the SACADAS directly. All the money is first chanelled through the hands of the contratista. This system indeed simplifies matters for the hacenderos, but opens the field for abuses.

I will now set down some of the more prevalent abuses. My source of information: the SACADAS with whom I worked. I have with me the names and the home addresses of eighty-six SACADAS from whom I received the information that follows.

In general, because the SACADAS are helpless, they cannot dictate their own terms. They have to agree to everything the contratista demands, otherwise they would have no jobs. The contratista has a limitless field of abuse. No one dares stop him.

The contratista himself shows a veneer of goodness and justice before his hacenderos and administrators who, perhaps fooled by this veneer, and not wishing to probe any deeper into the truth, show themselves quite satisfied with listening to the contratista’s explanation of everything. Since the contratista is the source of EFFICIENCY in the process of production, the hacenderos do not want to remove him.

Towards the SACADAS, the contratista shows very little conscience in his leechlike sucking of every centavo he can steal, and in every way possible, thus:


A. The Anticipo

This is the term used for the cash advance given by the hacienda through the contratista to the SACADAS. Note that the money is not the contratista’s, but the hacienda ’s. But since it is the contratista who directly gives the money to the SACADAS, the impression given, and the impression received, is that the money, and hence the favor and the trust come from the contratistas.

The hacienda intends the anticipo to have no rate of interest at all. It is just an advance, which the SACADA repays once he is paid for the work he does.

But the contratista charges interest on the anticipo. The rate of interest can go as high as the contratista wishes. In many cases, the contratista does not give out the hacienda’s money in cash. Instead, he buys rice, and distributes it as the anticipo to be repaid. He overprices the rice, dictating his own price. In addition to his overpricing is the fantastic rate of interest which he charges.

B. The Accounting System

Since most of the SACADAS are illiterate and are not meticulous about numbers and figures, the contratista is free to put down whatever he wishes in the payroll and in the SACADAS’ list of debts. It is true that the payroll is supposed to be open to everybody’s scrutiny, but the sacada who does bother to scrutinize the payroll is not the rule but the rare exception. And even if the payroll, because of hacienda supervision, is in order, nevertheless the list of debts usually provides a virgin land for any contratista who has half a mind to be rapacious.

I have actually scrutinized a payroll, and everything in it was perfect. And yet that same payroll was made in the hacienda where the SACADAS suffered the most. Indeed, what was in the payroll was perfect. But what was not in the payroll was inhuman. When I acquainted the hacendero with the inhumanity of the contratista ’s cheating and greed, the hacendero told me that he had long been aware of his contratista ’s abuses. My next question remained unspoken; “Why haven’t you done anything to correct it?”


C. The Cantina

The Cantina is owned and operated by the contratista. Since the contratista often forbids the SACADA from holding any cash at all, the SACADAS cannot buy anything from any other store. Instead, they are forced to get the goods they need (clothes, soap, cigarettes, milk for their children, etc.) from the contratista ’s cantina. All their purchases are charged to their account.

The prices in the contratista ’s canteen are at least 100% higher than the prices in any ordinary store. Thus an espading (the bolo-like instrument used for cutting sugarcane) which costs P1.85 would cost P5.00 in the canteen. A cake of soap which costs ten centavos in any sari-sari store would cost twenty-five centavos in the contratista ‘s cantina. The prices are outrageous, but since the SACADAS have no other source of supply for their needs, they are forced to patronize the contratista’s cantina.

And as if this abuse were not enough, the contratista adds imaginary items and entries to the SACADA’s charge account. A SACADA I talked to, who took the bother to write down his own list of the goods he had taken at charge sale, found out that the contratista’s tally was P70.00 more than what the SACADA had actually taken.

Thus, in addition to the outrageous prices, the contratista was padding the SACADA ’s charge account.


D. Withholding of the SACADA’s Salary

The contratista withholds the SACADAS’ salaries until the end of the milling season. This does not give them the compensation they deserve for their hard work. In fact, at any definite time during the milling season, the SACADAS do not know how much they have thus far earned. Everything is on paper — in the contratista ’s possession.

When necessity comes, as for example, the serious illness or death of someone in the family back in Cebu or Aklan or Antique, the SACADA is forced to borrow money from the contratista at usurious interest.

Some contratistas, even in cases where a SACADA’s wife or child is dying or has died back home, give only enough money for transportation back to Antique, no matter how much the SACADA has actually earned up to that time.

The question here is not the gratuitous giving of money to the needy SACADA. The question rather is paying him for the work he has done. By depriving the SACADA of his hard-earned money, the contratista is depriving the SACADA of what is his own, his compensation, which he should be privileged to use at all times, especially in cases of emergency.

A final thing which must be mentioned here is this: the SACADA cannot help but give his contratista 100% trust, as, for example, in regard to all the accounting. Why cannot the contratista, on his part, show a little trust in response?


E. Usury

One night, three men from a neighboring hacienda came in the anonymity of darkness and asked me if I could do something to stop the abuses of their contratista. The first thing they mentioned was that the contratista fines them P2.00 every day that they miss work, even when they are sick or wounded.

I found this truth out quite accidentally (I never thought that the contratista would tell a deliberate lie to me and to the administrator of the hacienda) when several SACADAS told me that even if they worked full-time for the next four years, they would be getting nothing — they still would be in debt to their contratista. When I asked them to explain, they said that they had stood as guarantors to other SACADAS who later on ran away. Some of these guarantors had as much as P960 in debts — having guaranteed for five SACADAS who later escaped.

If one were to tabulate the total tonnage of the cane cut and loaded during the entire milling season, and if one were to sum up the total share the contratista gets, the amount would be staggering — even subtracting the amount which the contratista needs to pay his cook, his bookkeeper, his cantina caretaker, and his montadores.

All the abuses mentioned above: the anticipo, the accounting system, the canteen, the withholding of salaries, the usury, the contratista ’s cut, assume an even deeper meaning when we consider how little the SACADA earns.

The SACADA can cut and load an average of one and half tons of sugarcane a day. For this, he receives P2.70, after the contratista gets his cut. From this P2.70, the contratista further subtracts P1.20 for the daily food. This means that the SACADA is left with P1.50 after a whole day’s work. But even this P1.50 is not sure. It is sure only if the sugar central is able to send the vagones (railway cars) each day to the canefields. During some days, the SACADAS cut the cane but cannot load it, because there are no vagones. For some reason or other, the central could not send them. During these days, the SACADAS have no income, but they are nevertheless charged P1.20 for the food they eat. This case is true also during the days when they have no work, or when they are sick.

And so, granting the very improbable possibility that they are able to cut and load every day for a whole month (P1.50 x 30) their earnings will total P45.00 only. But de facto they never receive this much, because during the four or five Sundays of the month, and whenever the central cannot send vagones, and whenever the SACADAS are sick or wounded, they earn nothing, but they still have to pay the P1.20 for the food they eat. And all this is before the contratista swoops down with his cantina, his usury, his padded list of debts, as enumerated and explained above.

One afternoon I was talking with an old man who had been working as a SACADA for the past 40 years. I asked him, “During your 40 years of work, what was your highest net earning in one year?” “My highest net earning in one year?” He paused for a while, thought back, and then said, “About thirty or forty pesos.”

After 40 years, his highest take-home pay after a whole year of working . . . WAS ONLY P40.00!!!

In this section I have recounted some of the more prevalent abuses of the contratista. I found it very difficult to accept the fact that any man can be so greedy as to make money in so inhumane a manner, and especially from those who are already poor. And yet, such is the case.

AND THIS IS EVEN MORE SIGNIFICANT IF WE RECALL THAT THE SACADAS WHO TOLD ME ALL THIS WERE WORKING IN THE HACIENDA WHICH WAS SUPPOSEDLY, AND BY GENERAL CONSENSUS, REGARDED AS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE ENTIRE AREA.

When I asked the boss of a contratista, “What sort of person is your contratista?” he answered, “He is mean. He is ruthless.” And so I asked him further, “Why do you keep him then?” He answered, “Because he delivers the goods. He is efficient.”

That final comment characterizes the general attitude of the hacenderos towards the contratistas: The contratistas are a source of efficiency. They save the hacienda a lot of trouble — they provide the labor, they see to it that the work is done efficiently by the SACADA. The SACADA is merely a factor in production — a necessary factor, without which the sugarcane cannot be milled. The fact that the SACADAS are human beings, the fact that in the present state of affairs they do not and CANNOT live in a manner which befits their DIGNITY AS HUMAN BEINGS, the fact that the contratista steals most of what they have labored for, the fact that the hacenderos are responsible for their well-being and the well-being of their families — all this is conveniently forgotten.


PART II

THE SACADAS


Everything that I will now say must be seen within the context of what I said in the first part of this report, namely, the abuses perpetrated by the contratistas on the SACADAS. What I said there will not be repeated here. The main purpose of this section is to present a picture of how the SACADA lives and how the SACADA feels. It is here that I am sure I can speak with the utmost competence, because I lived and felt as a SACADA.

The only person who can speak adequately and completely about the sacada is the person who is himself a SACADA. A hacendero may meet the SACADAS every milling season for period of 20 years yet still NOT know them. He may, as often happens, fall into the illusion that the length of time suffices to acquaint him completely with how the SACADAS live and feel, but really he does not, and he cannot, accurately know them.

There is an infinite chasm between merely looking at and actually being a SACADA. No length of years can bridge this chasm. Only a SACADA can really feel what a SACADA feels. And only the man who has worked and suffered with the SACADAS can be the full recipient of the other SACADAS’’ innermost thoughts.

This fact made itself clear to me when, during my first days with them, the SACADAS initially told me and gave me the impression that everything was fine — that they were being treated well, that they were happy and had no complaint whatsoever. But as time went on, as I worked with them and shared their life completely with them, they began to consider me as one of themselves, they began to trust me, and they eventually revealed their innermost thoughts to me.

Thus a SACADA among SACADAS possesses two essential sources of information which the hacendero and the outsider can never enjoy, namely: (a) his own thoughts and feelings as he lives, works, and suffers as a SACADA, and (b) the complete trust and openness which the other SACADAS give him, enabling him to listen to thoughts and feelings which the SACADA will never share with an outsider.

There were 200 of us — men, women, and children staying in two adjoining cuartels.

There was not a single toilet.

There was only one source of water — an old pump. Here everyone did his or her washing, bathing, laundering. We had no blankets, no mosquito nets.

For food, three times a day we were served rice — the cheapest, driest, coarsest, most unappetizing I have ever tasted. Many of the grains were unhusked, and there were pieces of gravel to be found among the grains of rice. We were also given fish — small, dry fish (pinamalhan nga sapsap). Rough rice and dry fish, that was all. No liquid, no vegetables, a diet which gave no delight and no strength.

Yet strength is needed for the SACADA’s work. At 3:30 A.M. the lights come on, and by 5:00 A.M. the SACADAS have trudged, barefoot, through the one kilometer which separates the canefields from the cuartels.

The SACADA’s work is cutting and loading. This is easier said than done.

Cutting means removing the leaves and cutting the top and bottom parts of each sugarcane, some varieties of which twist their way horizontally, like so many long, unwieldy snakes. The canes, about eight feet in length, are heavy. After they are cut, they are piled into heaps of 25 to 35 canes. The work of cutting is monotonous -- the same endless bending of the entire body, the same strong cutting strokes of the espading with one hand, the same grasping and jerking and piling up of the sugarcane by the other hand. The work is also very exhausting. It saps away one’s strength in a very short time. Added to this is the discomfort of wearing thick, close-necked, long-sleeved denims (to protect oneself against cuts and rashes from the gilok and the leaves) under the heat of the burning sun. The work is monotonous. The work is hard. But the SACADA must continually keep on working, since, if he is to eat, he is supposed to cut tons of sugarcane.

The SACADA must now load the sugarcane. He bends down, gropes with his pile of 25 to 35 canes, positions them on his shoulders, and then, under this heavy burden, he is supposed to navigate his way through the field to the vicinity of the railroad tracks where, still carrying his burden, he goes up a narrow, steep wooden board, and then he dumps his load into the vagon, and then arranges the canes so they would not fall out on the way to the central. Then the SACADA goes trough the whole process again and again until all the sugarcane he has cut is completely loaded into the railway cars.

Sometimes, when I could no longer raise my arm for another cutting stroke of the espading, or when, after carrying a heavy load to the vagon, I would, from sheer exhaustion, just sit down on the ground, I would look up to see the SACADAS still at work — some of them younger than my students, some of them older than my father, carrying twice the load I could carry. I could not help but be struck by a terrible contrast — for I would think of the SACADAS, who work so hard, and receive so little, and I would think of my students in the Ateneo, who do so little, and receive so much; I would think of how the SACADAS slave for every centavo, and how easily the rich man and the rich man’s son squander the money they have not earned — and I saw the injustice of it all, and I began to understand why the Communists are Communists.

As the day ends, the SACADAS slowly drag themselves back through the canefields and the dusty roads to the cuartels where they know they will be met by the same unappetizing food. As they walk on, a cloud of dust would be kicked up by an occasional Mercedes Benz zooming past as the hacendero hurries to an appointment in Bacolod. As the SACADAS near the cuartels they see the children they love — dirty and in tattered clothing, children who like them would inevitably fit into the perpetual cycle of ignorance and hard work.

Some of those who have gone home earlier would be sitting about doing nothing and in their terrible exhaustion, perhaps strumming a guitar, but giving forth that music peculiar to the SACADAS which always has a plaintive note of melancholy and despair.


No, the SACADAS are not happy as they trudge back from their back-breaking work. And to think — for most of them, life would be like this for 30, 40 years — until they are too old to swing an espading. And so, to escape, if only for a moment, from a lifetime of much labor and little reward, some of them would search out the tuba vendor, get drunk, and fall into a temporary peace that sleep can give.

But not all the SACADAS sleep at once. In the darkness of the night many of us would huddle around and listen to each one open his heart and recount his personal tragedy. And these tough, hardened men — I actually saw them cry!

And some cried like little children. And no word of ours could stop their sobbing and their tears.

One night I looked around at the faces that surrounded me, and I asked these downtrodden SACADAS, “If the Communists come, will you join them?” They said, “Yes.”

I asked further, “If they tell you to kill the hacenderos, will you do it?” And they said, “Yes.”


PART III

THE HACENDERO


In reading Part I of this report, one may get the mistaken impression that the root of the SACADA problem lies in the contratista. But the truth of the matter is this: both the problem and the solution regarding the SACADAS of sugarland ultimately rest upon the hacenderos.

Because of this, and because of the fact that the SACADAS have suffered too much and too long, one is very much tempted to present a vitriolic finale to this report. One can, for instance, isolate the case of a well-known hacendero and point out how he goes to Cebu for a cockfight and loses P120,000.00 there in one day, how he keeps a regular harem of teenage prostitutes in his Bacolod “office”, and how his farm is a constant hotbed of violence and labor problems.

But while all this is true of this hacendero, it is not true of every hacendero. One must be very careful lest he blow up an isolated case into a universal characterization of all the hacenderos.

There are as many kinds of hacenderos as there are haciendas.

Nevertheless two facts remain incontrovertible: the contratistas do abuse, and the SACADAS do suffer, right now.

Before I write on, I pause momentarily, for already I hear the objections of some hacenderos who point to the benefits they have given the SACADAS and who bask in the illusion that by so doing, they have already given their SACADAS a perfect paradise. This attitude is utterly infuriating, for it mistakes the minimum for the maximum, and it confuses the infinitesimal for the adequate. Let these defensive hacenderos live and work as their SACADAS live and work, and they will see that despite the reforms and the bonuses they so loudly boast of, the contratistas still abuse, and the SACADAS still suffer.

And since this is a fact, we must now inquire why such is the fact. Surely, the SACADAS would not be suffering the way they suffer (a) If the hacendero knew what is going on, and (b) if the hacendero were genuiely serious about effecting reforms.

But the hacendero does NOT know what is going on. Some hacenderos lease their farm through the arriendo system, in which case they do not even have to set foot on their farm — they just wait for their percentage of profits at the end of the milling season. Other hacenderos hire an administrator to run their hacienda, in which case they have little or nothing to do with the actual running of the hacienda.

However, there are some hacenderos who do manage their haciendas personally. But even these hacenderos do not have a thorough knowledge of the life and problems of the SACADAS, because they view everything from a distance — physical and psychological. Here I deliberately repeat what to me is of supreme importance: even when the hacendero does have some contact with the SACADAS for as much as twenty years, nevertheless, because the hacendero does not actually experience the life of the SACADAS, he does not have a personal, complete knowledge of that life. Nor will he, as long as he maintains his distance, ever acquire this complete knowledge from the lips of the SACADAS themselves. And this is because the shy, inferior SACADAS are afraid or ashamed to tell him everything for fear of violence, or reproach, or indifference.

The hacendero is not overly eager about effecting reforms. And this is understandable, for there are very strong reasons which militate against the hacendero’s ameliorating the situation of the SACADAS into that level which befits their dignity as human persons, that level which is possible only when they are treated as brothers, and when they are paid a family wage, a living wage.

First of all is the powerful, defensive, subconscious attitude of opposition, since a better life for the SACADAS would necessarily mean less money and less luxuries for the hacendero and his family.

Secondly, the hacendero is born into the system. Through all the years of his upbringing, and because of the practices in the other haciendas, he is accustomed to seeing the SACADAS living and working in their wretched condition. Through familiarity, therefore, the hacendero is lulled into an attitude of acquiescence, acceptance, and preference for the status quo: “The SACADAS are SACADAS, and so they live that way. It has always been that way. Why change it?”

Underlying this attitude is an even more fundamental and more insidious one, namely, the rich are rich, and that is that. The rich are born into a privileged class. They are responsible to nobody. They are responsible for nobody, least of all the SACADAS who, to their mind, are mere transient workers anyway, and who, above all, are uncultured, dirty, ignorant, unlovable, poor.

It would seem, then, that the hacendero does not totally know what is going on, and he is not genuinely serious about effecting reforms.

Yet the hacendero is not stupid. He does know of the abuses perpetrated by the contratista. A very good proof that he does know of these abuses is that constant refrain one hears from hacenderos again and again, “I pay well. It is the contratista who deprives the SACADAS of their money.”

The obvious rejoinder to this is, “Why don’t YOU correct the contratista ’s abuses then?” It is the hacendero, and not the contratista, who IS the boss.

Or why not get rid of the contratista system altogether? When I half-suggested this to a hacendero, his reaction was, “Impossible!”

No, not impossible. Only difficult, at first. It has been tried, and it has succeeded, for many years.

We have to acknowledge the fact that one or two hacenderos have achieved significant reforms, and that some hacenderos show signs of being genuinely serious about effecting reforms; they are beginning to be bothered about the SACADAS’ plight.

These reforms will not be achieved by the law alone. No amount of government legislation can give the SACADA the compensation which is commensurate with his dignity and his work. In the first place, it is very easy to circumvent the Minimum Wage Law by doctoring the payroll and by bribing the government inspector. In the second place, even if the Minimum Wage Law were complied with, it would still demand the strictest supervision on the part of the hacendero so that the contratista would not be able to steal what rightfully belongs to the SACADA.

In the third place, the Minimum Wage is not a Living Wage, is not a Family Wage, and the hacendero, if he is sincerely concerned about the well-being of his SACADAS must, at the cost of personal sacrifice and disapproval from his peers, personally make an effort to transcend the letter of the law and pay his SACADAS not the minimum demanded by the law but a Living Wage which, in the words of Pope Pius XII is “a salary which will cover the living expenses of a family and make it possible for the parents to fulfill their natural duty to rear healthfully nourished and healthfully clothed children; a dwelling worthy of human persons; the possibility of securing sufficient instruction and becoming education for the children; of foreseeing times of stress, sickness and old age.”

In regard to reform, therefore, we must stress this all-important point: in the last analysis, because he is the owner, the boss, the policy-maker of the hacienda; because HE, and not his fellow-hacendero nor his contratista, has the final say in everything, it is the hacendero, and the hacendero alone who can solve the problems of his SACADAS in the farm.


CONCLUSION


It is clear, from Part I and Part II of this report, that a radical change in the SACADA situation is necessary.

The essential prerequisite to this change is the quality of sincere, efficacious concern that seeks to know the truth, no matter how much it hurts, and, in the pursuit of this truth, studies the real situation with complete openness. This personal study should lead the hacendero to actually identify with the SACADAS by himself living, working, and suffering with them fully as a SACADA.

In case he dares not do this, then he should consult not only himself, nor those whose knowledge of the situation is superficial and biased, but those who have ACTUALLY LIVED as SACADAS.

This concern, finally, should have efficacious results along two lines: quantitatively — having seen the real situation, the hacendero then provides his SACADAS with what befits them and their families as human beings; qualitatively — the hacendero must begin to listen to their thoughts, their anxieties, and their hopes — since they, like him, are all human beings.

The SACADA problem is a very complex problem; one which, among other things, also includes the hacendero’s own manifold problems.

BUT AFTER EVERYTHING IS CONSIDERED, I CONCLUDE THAT MUCH CAN BE DONE AND MUCH SHOULD BE DONE BY THE HACENDERO TO ENABLE HIS SACADAS AND THEIR FAMILIES TO LIVE WITH THE HAPPINESS, THE SECURITY, AND THE DIGNITY WHICH THE HACENDERO WOULD WANT FOR HIMSELF AND FOR HIS FAMILY IF HE WERE THE SACADA AND THE SACADA WERE THE HACENDERO.

(The article, “SACADAS OF SUGARLAND” ends here – ACJ)

v v v

(Excerpts from THE JESUIT, March 1, 1977)

Arsenio Clemente Jesena III, S.J., was born on 14 September 1940 in Manapla, Negros Occidental.

He joined the Society of Jesus when he was nineteen years old, taught at the Ateneo de Manila during Regency, and was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood by His Holiness Pope Paul VI.

In the year 1969, as “The SACADA Priest” who lived and worked among the migrant sugarcane workers of Negros, Father Jesena unleashed a storm of controversy, shock, anger, and action when he published “The SACADAS of Sugarland”.

“The SACADAS of Sugarland” was a simple retelling of Father Jesena’s findings regarding the life and suffering of the SACADAS, based on his personal experiences when he was a SACADA among the SACADAS.

Father Jesena’s exposé hit the headlines of the national papers and remained in the front pages for the next 47 days. Aside from the newspapers, the national magazines also printed and reprinted the same Jesena report. Internationally, “The SACADAS of Sugarland” was translated into French, German, Chinese, Dutch, and was featured in the leading newspapers of Europe, America, and Australia. The British Broadcasting Company and German Television also sent teams to interview Father Jesena and to make TV documentaries about the SACADAS of sugarland.

It was while teaching at the Ateneo de Manila that Father Jesena decided to live and work with the SACADAS, the migrant sugarcane workers of Negros.

WHEN HE RETURNED, HE DID NOT EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE: FOR TO TALK WAS TO REMEMBER, AND TO REMEMBER WAS UNBEARABLE PAIN.

But his own conscience, and the untiring importunities of others, and the very silence and helplessness of the SACADAS themselves, constrained Father Jesena to make the truth known.

“Sometimes,” Father Jesena writes in his Report, “Sometimes, when I could no longer raise my arm for another cutting stroke of the espading, or when, after carrying a heavy load to the vagon I would, from sheer exhaustion, just sit down on the ground, I would look up to see the SACADAS still at work — some of them younger than my students, some of them older than my father, carrying twice the load I could carry, I could not help but be struck by a terrible contrast — for I would think of the SACADAS, who work so hard, and receive so little, and I would think of my students in the Ateneo, who do so little and receive so much; I would think of how the SACADAS slave for every centavo, and how easily the rich man and the rich man’s son squander the money they have not earned — and I saw the injustice of it all, and I began to understand why the Communists ARE Communists.”

“People everywhere were shocked by what I found out,” says Father Jesena, “but what is of greater significance, I think, is WHY I or anyone else should be one with the poorest of the poor.”

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In 1973, after finishing the courses at the Institute of Social Order and the Southern Philippines Educational Cooperative Center, Father Arsenio C. Jesena, S.J., received his new assignment: Bukidnon.

Immediately after he was assigned as Director of the Social Action Center in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, the southern part of the province was faced with a great crisis: HUNGER, caused by a nine-month drought, which had scorched and destroyed one harvest, and prevented another. Some people, especially children, died of starvation. Some died of poisoning from eating wild and poisonous roots. The majority was suffering from hunger.

What can one do in a situation such as this? There is no food, no money, no resources.

Tirelessly, starting with nothing, motivated and driven by the suffering of the people, the Jesuits of the Philippines sent burning appeals for help. They mobilized individuals and groups locally, nationally, internationally. They begged for or purchased food from the Visayas and even from Luzon. Then they supervised the delivery of this food from the waterfront of Cagayan de Oro all the way to the distant Bukidnon towns of Kibawe, Damulog, and Kiokong. Starting with nothing except the crying need of a suffering people, the Jesuits helped to catalyze a chain reaction of generosity which succeeded in saving a people in need.

Eventually, the rains returned, and poured in generous abundance, soaking the thirsty Bukidnon earth, and enabling the people to plant their corn and palay once again.

There is much which needs to be done, if the peasant-farmer of Bukidnon and other provinces in the Philippines is to be liberated: from the bondage of usury; from the sub-human conditions in health, shelter, and nutrition under which he has been suffering; from the exploitative domination of middle-men and traders whose greed for profit leaves no room for humaneness; from the fatalism and the ignorance and the defeatism which press hard upon the poor and the helpless of this earth.

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arsenio c. jesena, s.j.