On the agrarian reform program's 15th anniversary
Peasant Groups Assail CARP, Pagdanganan

If the agrarian reform secretary could not control the landlords in his own backyard, how much more those in the entire country? This question was posed by militant farmers groups a few days before the 15^th year of the government’s agrarian reform program, and referring to reports of landgrabbing cases in Bulacan, home province of Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto Pagdanganan.

BY GERRY ALBERT CORPUZ
Bulatlat.com

Ka (comrade) Tess, a peasant leader of Kalipunan ng Samahang Magbubukid-Rizal (KASAMA-Rizal), during a solidarity night outside the Department of Agrarian Reform 

Photo by Aubrey Makilan

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Philippine Peasant Movement or KMP) scored the government and called for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down following the reported spate of landgrabbing and militarization cases across the nation. The group started their weeklong protest at the DAR office in commemoration of the “inutile” CARP.

Last June 2, Bulacan farmers held a dialogue with Pagdanganan regarding several agrarian disputes in the province. Members of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan (AMB-Peasant Alliance in Bulacan), KMP's provincial chapter, told Bulatlat.com that Pagdanganan failed to stop the landgrabbing sprees in his home province.  

"If Secretary Pagdanganan cannot stop the landlords in his own backyard from grabbing peasants' source of livelihood in the province, what more with national problem of landgrabbing and landlessness in the country?” a farmer from Malolos asked.

Senate probe

Rafael Mariano, KMP chair and party president of the worker-peasant political group Anakpawis, dared Pagdanganan to investigate administration senator Ramon Revilla over an alleged landgrabbing spree in Barangay Cabangaan, Silang, Cavite involving 25 hectares of prime agricultural lands devoted to coffee, pineapple and other crops.

In an interview with Bulatlat.com Mariano said DAR's failure to prosecute and penalize erring landlords shows what kind of agrarian reform program the country has.

"The CARP protected the monopoly rights of landholding class over the farmers' legitimate stake on the land they till. This farce land reform program has endorsed land grabbing and warlordism to the detriment of small farmers nationwide," Mariano said.

The KMP chair said the six-month deadline given by Revilla to farmers to vacate the hotly contested land near the Tagaytay Highlands had alarmed the tenants who are comprised of 37 families or 164 individuals. They are now fighting for rights to cultivate and stay in Cabangan, Silang, and Cavite.

The affected farmers in Revilla’s land are also urging senators to conduct a multi-committee hearing at the Senate to investigate their colleague on the landgrabbing issue.

Leaders of the Samahan ng Magsasaka sa Cabangaan (SAMACA-Peasant Association in Cabangaan) and Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka or the Peasant Alliance in Cavite) joined KMP's Mariano in calling chairs of the committee on ethics, agrarian reform, agriculture and food to launch to investigate the case in aid of legislation.

The peasant leaders however said Revilla and son-in-law Robert Jaworski must inhibit themselves.

Revilla's son and current chief of Video Regulatory Board Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. said the contested 25 hectares of land belong to his family and the farmer-tenants did not pay a single centavo to his father during their stay in the Revilla estate.

But Atty. David Erro, executive trustee of the para-legal group Sentro Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra) said a leasehold agreement exists between the Revillas and the Cabangaan farmers and that the 25-hectare piece of land near Tagaytay Highlands should have been covered by CARP.

Erro said farmers have receipts proving that Revilla collects money from them as land rent disputing the Revillas' claim that a landlord-tenant relation did not exist.

"Since the 70's, landlord-tenant relations have existed between Senator Revilla and the farmers. Under current jurisprudence, the farmers' right should have been recognized and upheld by the agrarian reform office. But it appears that Senator Revilla is one untouchable landlord that DAR is afraid to engage in a face off,” said Erro.

Full disclosure

The KMP likewise urged legislators from both Houses of Congress to divulge their landholdings following the discovery of Revilla's land being exempted from land reform program. The group said senators and congressmen who made their respective disclosures of their state assets and liabilities did not mention their landholdings in their reports filed recently.

"In the name of public trust and national interest, we ask members of Congress to reveal their landholdings. The Filipino farmers want to know how many landlords are enjoying the protective seal of the DAR offices in Manila and in the regions," the group said.

According to KMP, one of the biggest gainers in the Arroyo administration was business tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco Jr, former crony of ex-Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada and one of the biggest landholders in the Philippines.

The group stressed that aside from Danding's 5,000-hectare plantation in Negros Occidental, he also maintains hundreds of hectarages of land in Palawan, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.

Cojuangco's latest land acquisition was the 150,000 hectares of land in Isabela for his ambitious Cassava project in the province. The group said Danding hired the services of the Philippine military, former rebel group turned mercenary gang Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB) and other paid security personnel to terrorize farmers disputing Cojuangco's claim to their lands.

The KMP likewise dared President Arroyo and First Gentlemen Atty. Miguel" Mike Arroyo" to divulge the current landholdings of the Macapagal-Arroyo clan. It said President Arroyo did not mention her family's total landholdings when she announced her Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL) last month.

First 100 days

DAR last week issued an accomplishment report, focusing on Pagdanganan's first 100 days in office. Document obtained from DAR said that as of June 2003, the department managed to distribute a measly 11,095 hectares of land from the current year target of 109,759 hectares or 10.10 percent.

The accomplishment report said only 8,847 farmer beneficiaries (FBs) out of 62,566 FBs benefited from Pagdanganan's first 100 days in office or 14.14 percent of target beneficiaries. The same report said DAR's backlog from May 2003 to June 2004 includes an undistributed 159,667 hectares affecting 80,565 farmer beneficiaries.  

This year DAR hopes to launch 155 agrarian reform communities (ARCs) and targets another 73 ARCs in the first half of 2004. But data said as of May 2003, DAR only managed to form 127 ARCs or 56 percent completion rate involving 4,900 beneficiaries.

But Mariano said ARCs were just " empty showcases" of land reform since there were no actual transfer of lands in these areas and the workers were reduced as producers of export crops highly dependent to inputs from monopolies and big landlords.

The Peasant Education and Studies Center (PESC), a research group said DAR's performance suffered in comparison with the escalation of land reconcentration in different parts of the country in the forms of
privatization, land use conversions and avant-garde sale of prime agricultural lands devoted to food production.

The group said in Mindanao, land possession of Dole Philippines went up to 90,000 hectares at the turn of the millennium compared to 10,100 hectares of agricultural lands it had in its disposal during the 80s.

The same applies to TADECO, another agro-corporation in Mindanao, which had 195 hectares, but landholdings soared to 55,000 in the early 90s. According to PESC, over 205,000 hectares of prime agricultural lands in Mindanao are under the corporate control of big agro-businesses in the island.

Roy Morilla, PESC policy advocacy officer said in Southern Tagalog, a total of 129,467 hectares of land were converted into commercial and industrial zones displacing over 100,000 peasants in the region. Morilla said in Cagayan Valley around 442,648 hectares of land were covered for land-use conversions in the guise of national development. Bulatlat.com  

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