HE FIGHTS to give land to the landless. And it was all because Danilo “Daning” Ramos lost his father Lazaro when he was five years old.
It was his father who taught Daning how to love and respect the land.
Being the older of two sons, Daning had to help their mother Remigia earn their livelihood after their father died. Daning and his mother used to make bangkaso, a rounded, cone-shaped bamboo basket where farmers put in rice seeds to sprinkle on fields before plowing. Mother and son would sell these baskets for three to four pesos each.
Daning’s mother would always tell him and his brother that their father died a dignified peasant. He said when he was alive, he never left the land despite offers for him to work in Manila to do odd jobs.
Land, for Daning’s father, was the beginning and end of life.
After classes in an elementary school in Malolos, Bulacan, Daning would help his mother, uncle and grandfather tend the fields. They were all tenants of a landowner. As tenants, mother and son belonged to the lowest strata of the peasant class.
Daning was always tired after working the fields, but he was always included in the honors list—until he reached Grade Six.  That year, he hung around with classmates who cut classes.  They would go to other barrios, swim, play until sunset.
On graduation day, Daning was not among those who went on stage to receive honors. That night, Daning cried, regretting having joined his truant classmates.
Later in his life, Daning would realize that, at the time he was cutting classes, he was trying to cope with the impositions of poverty forced on him by his father’s early death.
When he began schooling, he saw how his more privileged classmates lived and realized the gulf of difference between them.
He would traverse a three-kilometer dirt road going to school everyday while most of his classmates would ride the karitela, a horse-driven carriage, or foot-pedaled tricycles. 

Questions
His daily allowance was five centavos. He carried his schoolbooks in a bayong which became the butt of jokes among his classmates, who all carried regular schoolbags.
He remembered asking himself why they were so poor, why their life was so miserable. He also began to wonder why he had to do heavy tasks and suffer from physical exhaustion.
The only answer that would come to his mind was his father’s faith in the land—which they didn’t even own—and the teachings of the Church that whoever suffers in this lifetime would be rewarded in the afterlife. His family was devoutly Catholic.
After graduating from grade school, Daning could not proceed immediately to high school for they could no longer afford it.  So, at the age of 13, Daning became a full-time farm worker.
He would help in the fields during planting season and, while waiting for the harvest season, he would drive a tricycle, sell icedrop, make salakab (a bamboo basket for catching fish) and do carpentry work. He became a semi-skilled worker.

Communication skill
Come harvest season, after tending to their landowner’s land, Daning and his relatives would go to other towns and barrios to earn additional income by helping other farmers. They would go to as far as the Bulacan towns of Balagtas, Pandi, Bocaue and others.
One day, the young farmer caught the attention of the parish priest. He saw in Daning an ability to communicate well with his fellow parishioners. The priest heard how the young farmer would zealously discuss with people the things he had read in a book or magazine.
The priest invited Daning to join the catechists’ group. Daning would roam the province teaching the basics of Catholicism to young and old alike.
In 1978, Daning got involved in an organization called the Kristyanong Kapatiran (KrisKa) where they discuss community problems. Ka Daning, as he became known to friends and associates, described the group as the nucleus that would later spawn the Basic Christian communities.
Their parish, including KrisKa, got involved in mass protests against the operation of the Bataan nuclear power plant.

Mass protests
Ka Daning then became one of the leading figures in the mass protest movement.
Having gained prominence in the mass struggle, he was later invited to join the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulakan or AMB.
“I realized then that the answers to my questions since childhood lay in the struggle of the small and landless farmers to free themselves from the bondage of poverty, and their inherent right to own the lands that they till,” he says in Pilipino. “We have to destroy the feudal system that makes the farmers slaves in their own land.”
He remembered how every time their landlord would visit their barrio, his mother would bring out their biggest and fattest native chicken, all the available native eggs, the best rice and the freshest fruits to serve to the landlord. During fiestas or the landlord’s birthday, his mother, relatives and almost all the tenants would bring delicacies and help clean and decorate the landlord’s house.
“Those are classic examples of how the poor farmers then succumbed to the whims and caprices of the landlords,” Ka Daning said.
“But now, with the high level of political consciousness among the farmers, feudalism is bound to fall. The struggle for genuine agrarian reform is raging all over the country.”

Fast developments
Ka Daning became secretary general of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL) from 1990 to 1993 and later became the secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), a nationwide organization of farmers.
Ka Daning has made the KMP office in Diliman, Quezon City his “second home” because of his heavy load coordinating with other KMP chapters all over the country. He is also busy with the rest of the KMP in the Erap Resign Movement.
On Nov. 14, they joined other sectors to march to Malacañang and demand the resignation of President Estrada.
“The developments are very fast,” Ka Daning says. “We have to move fast also.”
Together with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, Ka Daning talked several times to Cardinal Sin to solicit his help on behalf of the peasant. One KMP member described Ka Daning to be very effective when it came to dealing with the religious because he was once a part of them.
Ka Daning also took part in the “People’s Caravan—Citizens on the Move for Land and Food without Poisons,” held in the last half of November. The caravan covered Northern and Central Luzon, Davao City, Davao del Sur and General Santos City in Mindanao, and culminated in Manila, with participating farmers from India, Bangladesh, Japan, Korea and Indonesia.
They called on people to take active part in the “struggle for the right to own land, decent livelihood, and safe food.”

Land will never go
Like his father and mother, Ka Daning has not succumbed to the temptation to leave the land.
“It is unfortunate that some small farmers make use of their land as collateral for overseas employment, only to end up landless and penniless after unsuccessfully reinvesting their money in small ventures like tricycles or sari-sari stores,” Ka Daning said.
His advise to farmers: “Land is wealth. It will never go. It can be planted to rice, kangkong (swamp cabbage), kamote (sweet potato), fruit-bearing trees, or it can be used for raising hogs and chickens. These are enough to feed a family or more. So, don’t even think of selling your land because you will regret it in the end.”