THE Court of Appeals (CA) has reversed the decision issued by the Office of the President (OP) in 2012 allowing the Department of Agriculture to place more than 59 hectares of property owned by the Aboitiz clan under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) coverage.
In a 14-page decision penned by Associate Justice Victoria Isabel Paredes, the CA’s Special Eleventh Division, found merit to the petition filed by the Aboitiz family, led by Jaime Jose Aboitiz, executive vice president and COO of Aboitiz Power Corp., seeking to stop the government from seizing its property in Barangay New Carmen, Tugbok, Davao City.
The appellate court noted that the petitioners main business is cattle-raising and not agricultural business.
“Petitioners have sufficiently shown that the subject lot had been devoted to livestock raising even before the passage of the CARL [Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law] and that one of the main consideration for the lease of Lapanday Agricultural and Development Corp. [Lapanday], way back in 1975, was to gain access to bananas which replaced the cumbersome method of milling rice and corn to produce bran mixed with molasses and pasture grass, and then used as feed for its cattle herd,” the CA pointed out.
The CA explained that it was not uncommon for enormous landholding to be intermittently planted with trees.
“Thus, the presence of banana trees on the subject lot at the time it was leased to Lapanday must be placed within the context of how it figured on the totality of the running of the cattle ranching business which, in the case at bar, was an integral and necessary component in the cattle and livestock-raising business of petititoners,” the CA said.
The CA also gave weight to the supervening event that the petitioners initially raised in its motion for reconsideration before the OP.
The Aboitiz clan claimed in their petition that while the subject lot was leased to Lapanday to address the need of their cattle for bananas, the same was abandoned by Lapanday on October 31, 2011, due to caso fortuito or fortuitous events.
“As necessary consequence of Lapanday’s abandonment of the subject lot, the same reverted back to a grazing land,” the CA said.
“It could not have been the intention of the framers of the Constitution that lands exclusively devoted to livestock which, in the interim, were planted to bananas, to address a cattle raisers’ need for food for their cattle and which finally became new grazing land for their cattle, would be covered by CARP,” the CA added.
Based on the records, the Aboitiz family bought the cattle ranch from Enrique Zobel back in 1970.
To avoid the trouble of planting, cutting and hauling homegrown supplement or grass for its feedlots, it leased a portion of the land to Lapanday, to ensure its cattle herd a steady and dependable cattle food in the form of nonexportable bananas.
On April 20, 1998, the Aboitiz family filed an application with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the exclusion of Lot 467-A, covered by TCT T-25916 from the CARP on the ground that the land holding is devoted to the raising of livestock.
The land covered by TCT T-25916 appears to have been divided into three sections: Lot 467-A-1 or the lot subject of the case; Lot 467-A-2 consisting of 61.73 hectares, which was utilized as an airstip and road; and Lot 467-A-3 consisting of about 12.12 hectares.
On May 2, 2000, the DAR granted in part the application with respect to Lot 467-A-2 but increasing the coverage over the subject lot from 51 hectares to 59.09 hectares.
It denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the Aboitiz family, prompting it to appeal the matter before the OP, but the latter denied the same in a decision on September 7, 2012.
“In the instant case, we find that, contrary to the findings of the OP and its subalterns, the subject lot had always been actually devoted exclusively to livestock farming, with an interim agricultural activity for livestock feeds, even before the enactment of the CARP and thus, exempt from its coverage,” the CA said in reversing the OP’s decision.
Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Vicente S.E. Veloso and Pedro Corales.