Task Force Mapalad
August 2, 2020
Castriciones urged: Install us now! We can only fight the pandemic if you will let us win our fight for land
“We appeal to Secretary Castriciones to stop this injustice now. This is his sworn duty. CARP is pro-poor and pro-peasant, it is not an enabler of greed and impunity. The program is there to strengthen our rights to the land we till, not to further enrich the already rich and embolden them to further oppress us.”
Landowners on paper but still landless in real life, about 100 farmers of Capiz province are appealing to Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones to install them in an agricultural landholding that was supposedly awarded to them 23 years ago via the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
“The DAR, Secretary Castriciones’ own agency, the Court of Appeals, and recently, Malacañang, have already removed all the legal hurdles to enable us to take control of the landholding and stop the heirs of our former landowner from blocking agrarian reform,” said farmer-leader Teresita Billonid of the Montecarlo Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organization (Montecarba), a member of national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad.
Billonid is referring to the 198-hectare sugar plantation in the towns of President Roxas and Pilar formerly owned by the late Nemesio Tan.
It was supposedly already distributed by the DAR to Montecarba farmers in 1997 through certificates of land ownership award (CLOA), but up to now, the estate remains under the control of Tan’s administrator Ferdinand L. Bacanto, who is also the village chief of Brgy. Culilang in President Roxas.
Landless title holders
“What is the use of a land title if we still don’t have our land? How did it happen that while it is written in our CLOAs that we own the land, the government has allowed the former landowner to continue controlling it and earning millions of pesos from the property?” said Billonid.
“We appeal to Secretary Castriciones to stop this injustice now. This is his sworn mandate. CARP is pro-poor and pro-peasant, it is not an enabler of greed and impunity. The program is there to strengthen our rights to the land we till, not to further enrich the already rich and embolden them to further oppress us,” she said.
Fifty-nine of the 147 Montecarba farmers have already died.
Most of them grew old, got sick, and perished waiting to own the land they had tilled for a long time. The 59th CLOA holder was killed two years ago by gunmen being linked to the camp of our former landowner, according to Billonid.
She was referring to Orlando T. Eslana, 49, who was shot dead on February 11, 2017 by perpetrators allegedly linked to Bacanto. Eslana was killed five days after he joined 68 of his fellow CLOA holders in occupying a portion of the landholding in Pilar town.
At least five men opened fire on the CLOA holders, who had set up fences in the area. Four farmers were also wounded in the incident ̶ Ana Bocala, Nida Amo, Adel Vergara, and Melinda Eslana Arroyo, the sister of Orlando, who remains paralyzed, with the bullet still stuck in her head.
“Recently, the DAR chief said that CARP beneficiaries as food producers ‘are going to play a key role in winning this war’ against Covid-19. But in our case, Secretary Castriciones must first make us win in our decades-old struggle for land, before we can become among the fighters of the pandemic,” said Billonid.
OP thumbs down former landowner’s appeal
The Office of the President (OP) recently junked the petition of Tan’s heirs represented by Bacanto to retain ownership of the plantation, cancel the CLOAs issued to the farmers, and stop the DAR from implementing CARP in the property.
“The appeal is without merit,” stated the 18-page June 29, 2020 ruling signed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, referring to the plea of Tan’s heirs to recognize the ruling of the Regional Trial Court-Branch 18’s Special Agrarian Court (RTC-SAC) in Roxas City.
On July 28, 2000, the RTC-SAC issued an injunction order against the DAR, prohibiting the agency from taking possession of the Capiz landholding and distributing it to its tillers.
In its ruling, the RTC-SAC pointed out that the DAR had erred because it reversed the CARP’s land acquisition and distribution process by generating CLOAs for the Montecarba farmers instead of first notifying Tan that his property had already been placed under the program and compensating him in exchange for his land.
In the same ruling, which became final and executory on Feb. 14, 2011, the RTC-SAC added that the issuance of the CLOAs were “illegal” because Section 16 of Republic Act 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) provides that the DAR is only entitled to take immediate possession of a land covered by the CARP upon full payment of just compensation to the landowner.
‘Procedural infirmities should not affect ARBs’ rights’
However, quoting the Supreme Court in its 1999 en banc ruling in the case of Roxas & Co., Inc. v Court of Appeals, the OP noted in its June 2020 order that “the procedural infirmities, which are without the fault of the ARBs (agrarian reform beneficiaries), should neither prejudice nor affect their rights.”
“Finally, we stress that the failure of respondent DAR to comply with the requisites of due process in the acquisition proceedings does not give the Court the power to nullify the CLOAs already issued to the farmer beneficiaries,” the OP echoed the high tribunal’s ruling.
“It goes against the basic precepts of justice, fairness and equity to deprive these people, through no fault of their own, of the land they till,” it further quoted the high court as saying.
OP upholds DAR’s 2017 decision
The OP upheld the May 15, 2017 order of then DAR chief Rafael Mariano, which was assailed by Tan’s camp in its appeal before Malacañang.
In the order, Mariano asserted that while the CLOAs were issued ahead of the certificate of deposit of just compensation for Tan, in violation of the procedures under Section 16 of R.A. 6657, the procedural infirmities did not invalidate the coverage of the landholding under the CARP.
In the same decision, Mariano rectified the procedural flow by having the Register of Deeds (ROD) cancel the CLOAs and simultaneously transfer the ownership of Tan’s landholding to the government by issuing land titles named to the Republic of the Philippines.
Immediately thereafter, Mariano also ordered the Provincial Agrarian Reform Office of Capiz to generate new CLOAs in the name of the Montecarba farmers and register the same with the ROD.
‘Gov’t, haciendero both blocked CARP’
For a decade and a half ̶ between 1997, when the CLOAs were generated, and 2011, when the RTC-SAC’s ruling favoring Tan became final and executory ̶ Montecarba farmers were clueless of what was happening.
“We didn’t know that through the CLOAs, we were already made the agrarian reform beneficiaries of Tan’s plantation. We also didn’t know that Tan filed a case to stop us from taking control of the land,” said Billonid.
“Both the government and the haciendero blocked agrarian reform implementation in the land we had been tilling for decades. The DAR didn’t distribute the CLOAs to us, it didn’t install us in our land, while Tan and his heirs did all they could to retain control of the landholding,” she added.
DAR allowed former haciendero to still profit from land he no longer owns
The farmers only learned that they were already the owners of the landholding after they survived the wrath of Super Typhoon Yolanda that hit Visayas on November 8, 2013 and were visited by a non-government organization to help them recover from the disaster.
“With no means to shield ourselves from the storm, Yolanda worsened our already sorry plight. But our lives could not have been that hard had the DAR immediately facilitated our actual physical possession of the land and provided us support services so we could source food and earn from our supposedly CARP-awarded property,” said Billonid.
“Instead of making us benefit from our landholding, the DAR allowed Tan and later his heirs to still plant sugarcane and profit from a property that they no longer owned. The department even paid them millions of pesos supposedly to compensate them from losing their landholding to agrarian reform,” she added.
Records from the DAR showed that between 1997 and 2000, at least a total of P13.55 million had been deposited by the Land Bank of the Philippines in Tan’s behalf as just compensation for acquiring his landholding for CARP.
At a net income of at least P50,000 per hectare from sugarcane farming, it is estimated that Billonid and her fellow CLOA holders had lost total earnings of nearly P228 million or almost 10 million annually in the last 23 years that they were unable to make the 198-hectare plantation productive because of the DAR’s failure to install them in the property.
‘We had to push for our rights’
In 2015, Montecarba farmers started their campaign for their rights to the land.
“We had to push hard for our rights because the government didn’t do its mandate of making CARP a reality in our land,” said Billonid.
“We suffered a lot. When those from the camp of our former landowner learned about our campaign, they started to drive us away from the land and bulldoze our houses, until the violence culminated in the death of Orlando Eslana in 2017,” she added.
Acting on the farmers’ clamor to resolve their case, the DAR filed a petition for certiorari before the RTC-SAC of Roxas City, which earlier issued a decision favoring Tan’s camp. However, the RTC-SAC junked the plea, prompting the department to elevate the case to the Court of Appeals (CA).
CA nullifies lower court decision favoring former landowner
On August 29, 2019, the CA declared the RTC-SAC’s July 28, 2000 injunction null and void and affirmed the DAR’s exclusive and original jurisdiction over all matters involving agrarian reform implementation.
“Indeed, the RTC-SAC was devoid of any authority to issue a writ of preliminary injunction against the DAR in relation to any case, dispute or controversy, arising from, necessary to, or in connection with the latter’s application, implementation, enforcement or interpretation of the CARL (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law),”the appellate court noted in its ruling.
In its June 29, 2020 decision against Tan’s camp, the OP said it “takes cognizance” of the CA’s ruling.
Malacañang noted that Sections 55 and 68 of the CARL “expressly prohibit courts to issue any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against agencies…in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement, or interpretation of R.A. 6657 and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform.” -END-
