Negros farmers hold protest outside Agri office

Photos released by the Task Force Mapalad to the Mindanao Examiner show poor Filipino farmers from the Arroyo-owned Hacienda Bacan in Negros Occidental province gather in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform central office in Quezon City on Monday, June 28, 2010 and urge on the agency to dismiss the application for the conversion of the hacienda from agricultural to industrial use. The farmers say the move is aimed at preventing the distribution to peasants through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program the 157-hectare hacienda.

MANILA, Philippines – Farmers from Hacienda Bacan in Negros Occidental’s Isabela town and their supporters gathered in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) central office in Quezon City to ask for the dismissal of the application for conversion of the hacienda from agricultural to industrial use.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM), said the application for conversion, filed two weeks ago at DAR by the family of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, is an 11th-hour attempt to evade the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and prevent the distribution of the 157-hectare hacienda to 67 farmer-beneficiaries.

“We want DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman to immediately dismiss the petition because there is no legal basis for conversion of Hacienda Bacan. It is already a government property, having been acquired under CARP through compulsory acquisition and already paid for by the government in the amount of P42.3 million,” Angeles said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

Angeles said the farmers will hold camp outside DAR until after the application for conversion is dismissed and the property is formally awarded to the farmer-beneficiaries.

“Secretary Pangandaman has until tomorrow - June 30 - to decide on the petition, but if he defers any decision, we will bring our case to the next administration,” he said.

The farmers said the application for conversion was filed by Ruy Rondain, lawyer of Mr. Arroyo, on behalf of Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corporation, the registered corporate owner of Hacienda Bacan.

“We decided to stakeout at DAR because anything can happen between now and until President Arroyo steps down at noon of June 30. We have information that DAR is under pressure from the family of Mr. Arroyo to approve the application,” said Angeles.

He said the farmer-beneficiaries, led by Rogelio Salva, have filed before DAR a motion opposing the application for conversion.

In the opposition motion, Salva said that Rivulet Corporation had no more juridical personality to apply for conversion since Bacan had been acquired and paid for by the government, that the application for conversion was meant to evade CARP, and that it violated DAR rules on conversion under Administrative Order No. 1, Series of 2002.

Under AO No. 1 Series of 2002, irrigated agricultural lands such as Hacienda Bacan is non-negotiable for conversion (Section 4), and lands already under land valuation and acquisition are highly restricted from conversion (Section 5).

Angeles said Hacienda Bacan was placed under CARP coverage in 2001 through voluntary offer to sell, but was later acquired through compulsory acquisition after the Arroyos sought to convert the property for ethanol production following the passage of the Biofuels Act in 2006.

He said that in July 2008, the property was valued for P42.3 million and the Land Bank had issued the corresponding payment to Rivulet.

The payment covered 148 hectares of the hacienda’s total area of 157 hectares.

Consequently, DAR twice ordered the Register of Deeds of Negros Occidental to issue a new title for the hacienda in the name of the Republic of the Philippines, but so far nothing has been done.

Angeles said President Arroyo had promised to distribute the hacienda to the 67 farmer-beneficiaries, but she had not kept the promise.

Poor Filipino Farmers Knock On Palace Door

Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello assures farmers, who stage a hunger strike from President Gloria Arroyo’s husband Jose Mihuel Arroyo’s 157-hectare sugar land that the Palace will act on their issue. A meeting with Land Registration Authority administrator Benedicto Ulep, Department Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, Task Force Mapalad chairman Christian Monsod, and the group’s president Jose Rodito Angeles is set next Monday, December 8, 2008. Bello appealed to farmers to lift their 5-day hunger strike as they negotiate. Farmers are calling for the distribution to farmers-beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of Arroyo’s Hacienda Bacan in Negros province as promised by the President in 2001 when President Joseph Estrada was ousted.

MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 5, 2008) – Poor Philippine farmers who are now on their fifth day of hunger strike in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City have gathered in front of Malacañang on Friday to seek audience with President Gloria Arroyo and ask her to keep her promise to distribute Hacienda Bacan and other landholdings owned by the family of her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo in Negros Occidental province.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad, said they have decided to go to Malacañang after the government agencies which are supposed to look into their plight ignored their pleas.

“We have been asking the Register of Deeds (ROD) in Bacolod City for over a month now to register the CLOA (Certificate of Landownership Award) of farmer-beneficiaries in Hacienda Bacan. We have gone to the Land Registration Authority, only to be arrested by police. We have urged Mike Arroyo to obey the law and stop resisting the distribution of his hacienda. Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,” said Angeles, a former farm worker of the Arroyos in Hacienda Grande in the village of Robles in La Castellana town.

“Now we go to the President herself. She made a promise not just once, but several times in the past, to distribute the Arroyo landholdings. We want her to keep that promise. We want her to tell her husband to stop pressuring the ROD to delay the registration of the CLOA for Hacienda Bacan,” Angeles said.

TFM had earlier called for the relief of lawyer Romulo Gonzaga, chief of the ROD in Bacolod City, for allegedly obstructing the process of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform (CARP) in the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan, located in the village of Guintubhan in the town of Isabela.

The farmers also called on LRA Administrator Benedicto Ulep to process the registration of their CLOA in the wake of Gonzaga’s adamant refusal to register it. Angeles said they will also ask President Arroyo to ensure the distribution of another Arroyo hacienda—the 10-hectare portion of the 197-hectare Hacienda Grande.

He said the 10 hectares were the only piece of land left for CARP coverage after the hacienda was subdivided into 42 titles to evade distribution. (With a report from Lani Factor)

Philippine Farmers Stage Hunger Strike, Demand Distribution Of Land Owned By President's Husband

Farmers march, shave heads and stage hunger strike in Manila to press equitable distribution of lands to beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 1, 2008) – Eight Filipino farmers, including a woman, staged a hunger strike Monday in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Manila to press the government to look into the plight of peasants in Negros Occidental province.
The farmers were all from Hacienda Bacan, owned by President Gloria Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, in the village of Guintubhan in Isabela, Negros Occidental.

They resorted to an indefinite hunger strike to press for registration of their Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA). The farmers are encamped outside the DAR office since November 8. They already shaved their heads, nuns assisting them, to protest the government failure to register their CLOA.

The eight farmers were among some 30 peasants who were arrested by the police last week for protesting in front of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) office in Manila. They were later freed after the LRA dropped the complaint it filed against them.

The farmers said they wanted only to seek an audience with LRA Administrator Benedicto Ulep for registration of their CLOA.

The police rounded up the farmers and filed charges of illegal assembly and serious disobedience to authority, but the Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Leila De Lima convinced the LRA to drop the charges.

The farmers said they were forced to bring the issue to LRA after the Register of Deeds (ROD) in Bacolod City repeatedly refused to do so due to alleged pressure from the hacienda owner.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation called Task Force Mapalad, is among those who are on hunger strike. Angeles, also a petitioner for distribution of another Arroyo land, the 196-hectare Hacienda Grande in the village of Robles in La Castellana, said he is in solidarity with the Bacan farmers.

“Once again we are putting our lives at stake to convince the First Gentleman to uphold and obey the law, stop resisting the Comprehensive Agrarian reform Program and allow his hacienda to be distributed to the farmer-beneficiaries,” Angeles said.

Angeles said the registration of CLOA is the final step prior to installation of 67 farmer-beneficiaries in the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan, which had been awarded to them under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

“The farmer-beneficiaries deserve to be given their land. They had fought for almost 10 years. They had overcome all obstacles put up by the landowner. Now they are in the final battle for registration of their CLOA,” Angeles said.

He said among the obstacles the farmers had to hurdle were alleged attempts by the landowner to delay or stop the processing of claim folder, the issuance of memorandum of valuation, and the issuance of certificate of cash deposit.

Father Robert Reyes, who is supporting the farmers, led Monday the start of a 10-day, 157-kilometer run in support to the distribution of Hacienda Bacan to its beneficiaries.

Reyes said the run is also a symbolic call for Congress to hasten the passage of a law extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

“I support the Negros farmers because their cause is just, and I call for extension of CARP because it is the only legal instrument by which poor farmers can hope to own land,” Reyes said.
Reyes said the 157 kilometers that he and other participants from civil society will complete in 10 days represent the 157 hectares that comprise Hacienda Bacan.

The priest and the other runners started in San Miguel town in Tarlac province to remind how CARP was compromised when the hacienda, owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino, moved for stock distribution option instead of directly distributing the land to farm workers, thus practically evading land distribution. (With a report from Lani Factor)

Filipino farmers ask President Arroyo: "Where is your promise to distribute hacienda lands?

NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 22, 2008) - Philippine farmers seeking the distribution of the Arroyo-owned Hacienda Bacan in the village of Guintubhan in Negros Occidental's Isabela town have reminded the President of her promise to distribute hacienda lands under the agrarian reform program.

But until now, Arroyo has not acted on her promise and peasants were demanding equatable distribution of the farm lands.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM), said Arroyo publicly made assurance last July that the 155-hectare hacienda would be distributed under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Arroyo made the announcement after a group of farmers slipped past Malacañang security and held a lightning rally demanding the distribution of “Arroyo lands.”
Angeles, however, said that despite Arroyo’s public announcement, the family-owned Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corporation, which manages the hacienda, put up a strong resistance against CARP.

“Rivulet Corporation tried every step of the way to stop the CARP process in Hacienda Bacan. It tried to stop the Land Bank [of the Philippines ] from issuing a memorandum of valuation of the property. Then it tried to stop the bank from issuing the certificate of cash deposit. Now, it is trying to prevent the registration of CLOA [certificate of landownership award) of farmers with the Register of Deeds (ROD).

He said the ROD in Bacolod City refused to register the CLOA generated by the DAR provincial office unless the Land Bank revokes the certificate of cash deposit (COD) it issued in favor of Rivulet Corporation and issue another COD in the name of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.

Angeles said ROD’s refusal to register the CLOA was uncalled for because its function was ministerial and that it should defer to the authority of DAR as far as agrarian reform matters are concerned.

Meanwhile, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel said he had asked Sen. Gregorio Honasan to invite Atty. Romulo Gonzaga of the ROD-Bacolod City to the Senate hearing on Wednesday next week to shed light on why they refused to register the CLOA issued by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the 60 farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Bacan.

The Senate committee on agrarian reform, chaired by Honasan, is currently investigating how DAR is using the fund for land acquisition and distribution (LAD) of CARP amid complaints that DAR had suspended the CARP process after the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) expired in June.

In a previous hearing held last Nov. 10, DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman had admitted that some P200 million of CARP fund had been transferred to the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Pimentel urged the Senate to dig deeper into the said fund transfer, saying it was anomalous because ARMM is not covered by CARP and has its own general appropriations.

“We are surprised that DAR could issue P200 million of CARP Funds to the ARMM when it had only allocated some P1.6 million for support services alone for Negros Occidental. Paro Depenoso of DAR Negros Occidental told us this is not even distributed to farmer beneficiaries directly as these funds are used for training of local DAR officials, and supplies,” Angeles explained.

Angeles further stated that Negros Occidental has the biggest backlog in the Land Acquisition and Distribution (LAD) component of CARP.

Pimentel also said that among the issues to be investigated in Wednesday’s hearing is the problem of land distribution in Hacienda Bacan. (Lani Factor)