Undeveloped Palawan lands eyed for reversion

USEFUL BUT UNUSED | Entrance to the Iwahig Penal Farm. (Photo from the Commission on Higher Education)

MANILA, Philippines — Undeveloped former penal farmlands that were supposed to be distributed under agrarian reform 30 years ago could revert back to the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), according to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla.

Remulla justified the BuCor’s plan to reclaim idle former lands of the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro and the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa City from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and city government, respectively.

“We advise that the nonfulfillment by DAR of the conditions stipulated in the deeds of transfer gives the BuCor the right to revoke the transfer,” Remulla wrote BuCor Director General Gregorio Catapang Jr. in a legal opinion dated March 5.

Some 12,300 hectares of the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm were transferred to the DAR in 1990 and 1991 as a result of former President Corazon Aquino’s Executive Order No. 407 series of 1990.

The order stated all government lands suitable for agriculture should be distributed immediately under agrarian reform within four years.

Meanwhile, in 1994, the Puerto Princesa City government transferred 1,072 hectares of the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm to be developed as an industrial-commercial site based on former President Fidel Ramos’ Presidential Proclamation 350 series of 1994.

Reacquiring former penal lands

Subsequent presidential proclamations declared the same lands an environmental estate in 1996 and as a resettlement and agricultural site in 2004.

According to Remulla, DAR records showed that only 3,600 hectares of the former lands of the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm have been distributed to agrarian reform beneficiaries, while about 2,000 hectares in the Iwahig Penal Colony remain undeveloped.

Remulla, however, warned that BuCor must develop the former penal lands it will reacquire; otherwise, those farmlands will revert to the DAR for agrarian reform distribution.

READ: BuCor: 459 inmates transferred from Bilibid to Iwahig penal farm in Palawan

“Assuming the ownership of said lands could be recovered, the lands should be actually, directly and exclusively used by BuCor for the purpose for which they have been acquired according to the development and modernization plan,” he said.

“Otherwise, DAR can acquire the lands pursuant to EO No. 75,” stressed Remulla.

He was referring to then-President Rodrigo Duterte’s EO 75 series of 2019 that authorized the DAR to acquire for agrarian reform distribution government lands “which are no longer actually, directly and exclusively used or necessary for the purpose for which they have been reserved or acquired.”