President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gestures as she delivers her speech during the Luzon North Regional Rural Congress Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at the Baguio Cathedral in Baguio City in northern Philippines as members of the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM) march to ask the Filipino leader to call for a special session of Congress to pass the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program before it expires on June 10 this year. (Presidential photo by Rey Baniquet and AKP-Images for TFM)
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines - Farmers belonging to the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad had asked President Gloria Arroyo to call for a special session of Congress to pass the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
TFM president Jose Rodito Angeles said certification of the bill as urgent would mean nothing if the President did not call for a special session.
President Arroyo on Tuesday certified the bill as urgent, even as some lawmakers said the move was too late to pass the bill before Congress adjourned on June 13.
“The House has not finished deliberations on the bill because some anti-CARP lawmakers were deliberately trying to delay. In the Senate, Senator Gregorio Honasan has promised to submit the committee report on the bill as soon as he gets the data he needed from the Department of Agrarian Reform, so that he can defend the bill in the plenary. But DAR is taking its good time to do submit the data. All things said, there is no time for Congress to pass the bill, unless the President calls for a special session,” Angeles said.
He said failure to pass the bill before Congress adjourns will greatly benefit big landowners who are poised to convert their agricultural lands into agro-industrial uses.
“The landowners are waiting in the wings. Once CARP expires on June 10 and Congress adjourns on June 13, they can proceed with their pending applications for conversion, and technically there is nothing to stop them because the law against conversion of agricultural lands does not exist anymore,” Angeles said.
He said he was worried about the recent development in the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan, owned by Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corporation, which in turn is owned by the family of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.
“President Arroyo had recently ordered the distribution of Hacienda Bacan. It was voluntarily offered for sale under CARP by Rep. Ignacio Arroyo. The Rivulet board of directors had approved Iggy’s voluntary sale of the property. The First Gentleman had issued a declaration saying he was not the true owner of Hacienda Bacan and that he was allowing Rivulet to sell the property under CARP,” he said.
“The Land Bank of the Philippines was supposed to issue a valuation of the property weeks ago. But here comes the lawyer of Rivulet, Mr. Ruy Alberto Rondain. Last June 2, he wrote the Land Bank asking it to suspend the valuation process in view of their application for conversion pending before the DAR. Mr. Rondain had also written DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman asking him to order the provincial agrarian reform officer of Negros Occidental to cease and desist from making any statements or actions on Hacienda Bacan,” Angeles added.
He said the case of Hacienda Bacan show a clear pattern that the Arroyo’s continue to evade CARP and to pursue their plan to convert the property for ethanol production.
This development came after Secretary Eduardo Ermita ruled in favor of the Hennessy Development Corporation’s appeal to be given more time to complete requirements on their own land use conversion application.
Hennessy Development Corporation, the owner of the contested 124- hectare property in San Juan , Batangas is a non-existent entity as the Securities and Exchange Commission had already revoked its registration.
“If President Arroyo is really sincere in her call for a moratorium on land conversion, and if she is sincere in certifying the CARP extension bill as urgent, then she should expressly order her family to let go of Hacienda Bacan and ask Congress to immediately pass the extension bill through a special session,” Angeles said.
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