50-year land feud involving Madrigal hacienda solved
By Jonathan Mayuga
Correspondent

ABOUT 350 landless families tilling land within the Hacienda Madrigal of the family of Sen. Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal in Rizal, Kalinga, finally got their land titles after more than 50 years of struggle—legal and physical—for the land.
The other week, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) issued to them their certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) with Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman saying, “Nobody can say that the DAR has outlived its purpose. For as long as there are conflicts in land ownership, the department is here to stay as it is an integral part of the government’s sustainable rural development program.”
Pangandaman said the distribution of the 2,128-hectare Hacienda Madrigal to farmers, indigenous peoples and other claimants was attained as a result of interagency cooperation between the DAR, the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The NCIP issued ancestral domain titles covering 270 hectares to three Kalinga clans, while the DENR handed out Free Patent’s involving 265.5 hectares of forest lands to 669 beneficiaries.
Pangandaman said the remainder will be distributed to prospective beneficiaries. The screening of beneficiaries and surveying of the undistributed land are now ongoing.
The conflict between various claimants began when Susana Realty Inc. (SRI) claimed ownership of the vast tract of land covering Rizal town’s four barangays—San Pascual, Bulbol, Macutay and San Quintin—in March 1951.
The SRI used force in evicting farmers who till the land either by causing their arrest on trumped-up charges or destroying their farms and houses.
In 1991, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the farmers, affirming a Court of Appeals ruling that the disputed lands are deemed public lands and are not within the property claimed by SRI.
Despite the SC ruling, the conflict continued until DAR, DENR and NCIP stepped in and placed the disputed lands under the land reform program.