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A
MILITANT group has questioned the exemption of a
10,000-hectare sugar estate of the family of businessman
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala from the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), saying such is a lucid
testimony to the failure of the 20-year-old program.
What
used to be a sugar plantation is now a colony of
livestock and commercial farms, pasture lands and aqua
farms to evade distribution of lands to thousands of
landless farmers and fisherfolks in 19 out of 24
villages in Calatagan, Batangas, the group said.
Fernando
Hicap, national chairman of Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang
Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), said the Zobel
de Ayalas annexed an additional 2,000 hectares of
foreshore land areas to the land title and sold these
coastal lands to beach resort and golf-course developers
to make more money.
The
allegations were made by the militant fishermen’s
alliance on Sunday.
Aside
from protecting the family’s land interests in Calatagan
courtesy of CARP, Pamalakaya said the Zobel de Ayalas
allegedly managed to get 2,000 hectares of foreshore
land in Calatagan, overruling the Supreme Court decision
in March 1988 directing Zobel de Ayala to let go of the
2,000 hectares of seashore, and the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to resurvey the
contested foreshore land.
On March
25, 1988, the Supreme Court, then headed by Chief
Justice Claudio Teehankee-decided to give the
2,000-hectare foreshore land area to farmers and
fishermen residents of the 19 barangays, which were
being claimed by the Zobel de Ayala family.
Pamalakaya said the case Republic of the Philippines as
lessor, Zoila de Chavez, assisted by her husband Isaac
Chavez, Diogracias Mercado, Rosendo Ibañez and Guillermo
Mercado v Hon. Judge Jaime de los Angeles, et al.
contained the following dispositive portion”:
•
Annulling the questioned mandatory injunction of October
1, 1968 issued by respondent judge and making permanent
the restraining orders issued by the court;
•
Declaring null and void the questioned decision of
December 15, 1981, as well as the corresponding writ of
execution, having been issued by the respondent judge
with grave abuse of discretion and without jurisdiction
and for being in contravention of the final 1965
decision in Civil Case 373 as affirmed in G.R L-20950;
•
Declaring the resurvey plan duly approved by the
Director of Lands as sufficient basis for the execution
of final judgment in Civil Case 373 as affirmed in G.R
L-20950; and
•
Directing the Clerk of Court to issue the writ of
execution in the case for Civil Case 373 of the Regional
Trial Court in Batangas (Balayan Branch) reverting to
public domain and delivering to the duly authorized
representatives of the Republic all lands and lots,
fishponds, territorial bay waters, rivers, manglares,
foreshores and beaches, etc., as delineated in the duly
approved Resurvey Plan and any supplemental Resurvey
Plan as may be found necessary and duly approved by the
Secretary of Agriculture.
Hicap
said the experience of farmers and fishermen in
Calatagan pictures the real state of agrarian reform in
the country under CARP.
The
experience of the Calatagan farmers tells that the
proposal to extend what it described as “bankrupt and
antifarmer land-reform program” will spin more related
cases and scores of land- reform reversals contrary to
what pro-CARP proponents are talking about.
“It is
for these concrete experiences and appalling reasons why
farmers and fishermen are calling for the passage of
House Bill 3059, or the genuine agrarian-reform bill,
which will ensure that Calatagan farmers and fishermen
will get social justice that has been denied to them
since time immemorial,” he said.
Hicap
said CARP and its extension will make things worse as it
will exacerbate the century-old problem of landlessness
and injustice in the countryside.
“We need
the political, moral and legal correctness of HB 3059
and not the perpetual denial of justice under CARP,”
Hicap said.
HB 3059
intends to cover all agricultural lands in the country,
including all private agricultural lands, regardless of
crops planted and tenancy relations, lands occupied by
transnational corporations and big agribusiness,
including those utilize for commercial farming,
livestock, aquaculture and fishponds, and other lands
presently under various schemes.
The
proposed progressive land reform law asserts that
expropriated lands shall be distributed to the tillers
for free, with preference given to those who have been
occupying their lands as tenants and leaseholders.
The bill
asserts that the sale, mortgage or any mode of transfer
of all expropriated land shall be prohibited, except to
the peasant associations or political authority
constituted under the initiative of parties concerned in
cases where the owner-tillers can no longer till the
land for one reason or another. |
