MANILA, Philippines?Malacañang?s continued silence on the distribution of ownership certificates to farmers of Hacienda Bacan in Negros Occidental reportedly owned by Jose Miguel Arroyo, husband of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, led its tenants to seek the Senate?s help, a farmers? group said on Thursday.

The farmers said they were hoping the Senate would compel the Land Registration Authority (LRA) or the Register of Deeds in Bacolod City to register the 157-hectare hacienda plantation in their names.

?The continued silence of Malacañang and Mr. Arroyo on our repeated plea to keep their promise to distribute land in Hacienda Bacan is deafening. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) cannot anymore help us because it is under the landowner?s gun. So we turn to the Senate for help," Jose Rodito Angeles, president of the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad said in a statement Thursday.

On Thursday, the Senate committee on agrarian reform chaired by Senator Gregorio Honasan resumed its hearing on the status of the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Angeles urged Honasan?s committee to find out why the LRA and the Bacolod City Register of Deeds refused to register the certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) issued to 67 farmers by the DAR last November, adding that the two agencies could be succumbing to pressure from Mr. Arroyo.

?There is actually no legal reason for the LRA or the registrar not to register the farmers? CLOA. Their function is ministerial. But they could be under pressure from Mike Arroyo. We need the help of the Senate to compel them to uphold and obey the law,? said Angeles.

The farmers need to register their certificates in the DAR to become full owners of the land awarded to them under the agrarian reform program.

In a hearing of Honasan?s committee last November 10, Senator Aquilino Pimentel grilled DAR and Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) officials regarding the delay in the release of the certificates of cash deposit (COD), according to Angeles.

The next day, the LBP released the COD, which had been prepared way back in July. Angeles said the release of the COD could have been placed on hold because of pressure from the President?s husband.

In a hearing on Thursday, Honasan tackled the delay in the distribution of ownership awards to Hacienda Bacan and the transfer by DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman of P200 million in agrarian reform funds to the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao.

?The farmers are grateful to the Senate and to Senators Pimentel and Honasan for the release of the COD. The agencies responsible for registering land titles should know what their liabilities are for not registering the CLOA,? said Angeles.

Meanwhile, activist priest Fr. Robert Reyes ran from the Baclaran Church in Parañaque City to the Senate building on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City as a show of support for the Bacan farmers.

?The case of the Bacan farmers is like a battle between David and Goliath," said Reyes, in a statement. "It is a continuing social injustice. But in the Bible, we know who won in the end. I pray for the success of the farmers? struggle for land."