Drought Destroyed Their Fields. But When These Farmers Asked For Aid, They Got Shot.

After promised food assistance went AWOL, starving Filipinos took to the streets, never imagining what would happen next.

Photos by Todd Darling

On February 3, 2016 in Kidapawan, a city on Mindanao Island in the Philippines, the local government declared a state of calamity after El Niño brought record-breaking temperatures and severe drought. The resulting damaged crops and millions of pesos in losses left thousands of local families starving and without income. Declaring a state of calamity was supposed to allow the local government access to aid programs for families in need.

Aid, however, did not come.

On March 28, desperate, hungry protesters began gathering in front of the National Food Authority (NFA) warehouse in Kidapawan, demanding that the government deliver fifteen thousand bags of rice to the famers and their families. Government officials claim they were unable to distribute the bags because they would not have had enough left over to stretch aid supplies until the end of the year. Over the next few days the protesters’ number grew to over five thousand, amassing on the Davao-Cotabato Highway,…