CHARLES R. AVILA

This book is a result of over ten years experience in living with and working among the Filipino peasantry. Charles R. Avila emphasizes that he merely reports what ordinary peasants and their leaders have said in the course of their struggle against injustice and exploitation, Mr. Avila has been trained in Catholic seminaries but instead of accepting orders he joined the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF). He subsequently became a full staff of that organization which was the largest peasant movement in the Philippines before martial law. Its members become politicized enough to form a political party to contest the 1971 national elections.

Mr. Avila has written many essays and a number of books on philosophy, political economy and sociological problems. He has given lectures in the United States and elsewhere. For some time he was a Consultant with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Presently, he is connected with a regional organization called Asian Cultural Forum on Development (ACFOD) which is based in Bangkok, Thailand.