Senator Risa Hontiveros has called on the Senate to look into the series of agrarian reform reversals and land reconsolidation done by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) against several agrarian reform beneficiaries in several parts of the country.
Hontiveros lamented that farmers continue to experience injustice despite the enactment into law of Republic Act 11953 or the law that provides agrarian reform beneficiaries freedom from financial burden by condoning all their principal loans, unpaid amortizations and interests and exempts them from payment of estate tax on agricultural lands.
The senator cited the case of the farmers in Palico, Banilad and Caylaway in Batangas and in Anonas and Cuayan in Pampanga citing how her office received alarming reports of “what appears to be a pattern of agrarian reform reversals and land reconsolidation” done by the DAR.
In the case of farmers in Batangas, Hontiveros noted how the DAR granted Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) in 1988 as soon as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was passed into law.
“DAR continued to cover the land, but the DAR did not properly follow the proper acquisition procedure. Meanwhile the farmers continue to live on the land received under the periodic reform program,” Hontiveros pointed out during her privilege speech during the Senate’s plenary session on Monday, March 4.
“Because of the issues of mode of payment, the Supreme Court in 1999 ruled that DAR issued CLOAs without just compensation to Roxas and Co., and nullified the acquisition proceedings over the three haciendas,” the lawmaker noted.
The Roxas and Co. case was remanded to DAR for proper acquisition proceedings, but it did not move for decades, she also pointed out.
“As stated under RA 6657, as amended by RA 9700, if a title has reached 10 years, this is already indefeasible and can no longer be retrieved. Now, the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) were suddenly faced with eviction and had to transfer to another land,” she said, noting that the eviction was based on DAR Consolidated Order No. 6 which divides Roxas and Co. landholding equally but allocates to the farmers the less desirable areas.
“According to the ARBs my office spoke with, the CLOA holders from all three haciendas may be relocated to a parcel of land on Barangay Palico without electricity or potable water, and they were not consulted about the division of land,” she said.
The senator noted the same thing happened in Pampanga where the ARBs suddenly faced eviction even when they have been faithfully paying their dues under the agrarian reform program.
“They were not aware that the land they thought they already owned because they were paying for it faithfully and had faith in the system was already mortgaged,” she pointed out.
“Now there is a notice of demolition and force is being used on the farmers to evict them from their land,” she lamented.
Hontiveros said it is imperative for the Senate to conduct an inquiry into these cases as similar patterns also emerged from other parts in the country like Mauban, Quezon and Maliwalo, Tarlac.
“There is a pattern, Mr. President…This appears to be a systematic pattern that beleaguers our agrarian reform program,” Hontiveros stressed, acknowledging that the fight for land will never be easy.
“We do not blame the current DAR leadership, because this is a systemic problem that crosses administrations. Decades of neglect. But what is clear is that we owe a historical debt to our farmers,” she said.
“The President said he will seek permanent solutions to the issues that hound the agrarian reform (program) and its implementation. Let us start by addressing these patterns of injustice,” the senator appealed to her colleagues.
Hontiveros’s privilege speech was then referred to the Senate Committees on Agriculture and Food, and Agrarian Reform.