By LUZ RIMBAN
FARMERS are asking the Department of Agrarian to immediately distribute to 67 farmer-beneficiaries Hacienda Bacan in Isabela, Negros Occidental owned by the family of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The farmers said they are merely collecting on the promise Arroyo herself made eight years ago that she would distribute 1,000 hectares of Arroyo land to farmer-beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
After sailing from Negros to Manila and then marching to Quezon City, the farmers set up camp in front of the DAR Central Office awaiting word on the fate of Hacienda Bacan.
Hacienda Bacan is owned by the President’s brother-in-law, Negros Occidental congressman Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo.
On April 15, DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman issued a memorandum to regional directors to suspend the processing and approval of land use conversions “to address the unabated conversions of prime agricultural land for real estate development.”
Pangandaman’s memo comes amid fears that rice land being converted to agri-business and real estaste purposes contributes to a rice shortage and high rice prices. It also follows pronouncements from Arroyo herself that she favored a moratorium on land conversions.
But the peasant group Task Force Mapalad wants Arroyo and the DAR to include Hacienda Bacan in the moratorium on land conversion.
“She should ask her brother-in-law to stop conversion of the hacienda and have it distributed to the 67 farmer-petitioners who had already been selected and validated as legitimate beneficiaries,” said Jose Rodito Angeles, Task Force Mapalad president.
Representative Arroyo has hurdled most of the requirements needed to convert Hacienda Bacan into an ethanol plantation to provide raw material for the biofuel industry. The impending conversion will deprive 67 farmers of their right to own the land under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.
Hacienda Bacan farmers have marched to and are camped in front of the DAR Central Office in Quezon City, asking the DAR to put a stop to the conversion of the hacienda.
