[3][4] The cultivation of sugarcane, specifically Saccharum sinense, in the Philippines pre-dates Spanish colonization, being one of the original major crops of the Austronesian peoples, which includes Filipinos.
[5][6][7][8] It was traditionally used for making various native jaggery products (collectively called panutsa, like pakombuk, sangkaka and bagkat bao) used in cooking.
[9][10][11][12][13][14] Sugarcane farming became an industry after 1856 when Russell & Sturgis[15] first opened a branch in Iloilo for the purpose of giving crop loans to sugar planters.
[4][1][17] By the time Ferdinand Marcos' second term began, sugar had become a critical Philippine export, responsible for 27% of the country's total dollar earnings.
"[21] One of the factors that worsened the situation for the people of Negros was the overreliance on sugar as virtually the island's only agricultural crop (monoculture), with the Journal of the Senate of the Philippines noting that:[22] "practically the entire agricultural land of the province was devoted to sugarcane farms primarily in response to the lure of easy money and great profits from sugar which was then enjoying a privileged position in the world market."
By 1985, a survey by the National Nutrition Council of the Philippines estimated that about 350,000 children – 40 percent of Negros Occidental residents under the age of 14 – were suffering from malnutrition.
[25] This was the situation on 20 September 1985, which marked the date of the Escalante massacre, in which paramilitary forces under the command of Marcos-allied Negros Occidental Governor Armando Gustilo gunned down farmers protesting social conditions on the 13th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law.
[3] In the long term, however, the administration of President Corazon Aquino sought to redistribute land through the new Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.