BACOLOD CITY, Philippines -- Instead of happy masks marking this city’s Masskara Festival, about 100 persons wore masks with sad faces and picketed Bacolod Police Station 1 Monday to demand the release of five farmers arrested during the visit of President Macapagal-Arroyo here last week.

The five workers of Hacienda Paraiso in La Carlota City and Hacienda Grande in La Castellana owned by Antonio Arroyo, uncle of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, were among those demanding the immediate distribution of the Arroyo family’s lands in Negros Occidental under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), Task Force Mapalad (TFM) spokesperson Edna Sobrecaray said on Monday.

Police Station 1 is located in front of the Bacolod public plaza where the city is celebrating its 29th MassKara Festival, which is marked by the wearing of masks with smiling faces.

The protesters carrying placards said their sad faces symbolized the agony of the farmers who were detained instead of receiving land the President promised them in 2001.

The police filed last Thursday multiple charges against the five arrested farmers for interrupting Arroyo’s speech at the opening of the MassKara Festival a day earlier.

Superintendent Leo Erwin Agpangan, deputy director for operations of the Bacolod City Police Office, said they filed charges against Hermegildo Padilla, Everlito Alguna, Bonifacio Alguna, Noel Estaris Jr. and Gerardo Batalla for inciting to sedition, alarm and scandal, and resisting arrest before the city prosecutor’s office.

The five were with about 20 protestors, including Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance) members, who unfurled banners with anti-Arroyo messages just as Arroyo was beginning her speech before some 5,000 people.

“We will continue to hold daily protest actions until the police release the five farmers from detention. We condemn their arrest. They do not deserve the charges against them,” Sobrecaray said.

Their actions were not seditious because they were only asking for the distribution of the Arroyo lands that the President promised, she said.

Sobrecaray pointed out that the farmers did not resist arrest and were just exercising their right to be at a public place such as the plaza.