After Hacienda Luisita, the spotlight is on the distribution of the landholdings in Negros Occidental, a process that Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes admits is “more difficult” than the politically incendiary Tarlac estate owned by the family of President Benigno Aquino.
Hundreds of landless farmers from the Visayas are on a 10-day journey to Manila to urge the President and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to speed up the distribution of sugar plantations in Negros Occidental.
As of Monday, some 250 farmers from the province had arrived in Batangas City, where they were greeted by Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles. Twenty-two Catholic bishops have voiced their support for the march on Malacañang on Monday.
From Batangas, the group proceeded to Santa Rosa City in Laguna, where they were to stay overnight before heading to Manila early Tuesday.
Another group of around 60 farmers, tired and sweating, arrived in Cagayan de Oro City from Davao Oriental and Bukidnon. They were to fly to Manila and join the Negros marchers on Wednesday in Muntinlupa City. Some of them had been marching since June 1 from Malaybalay in Bukidnon.
Mindanao marchers
The Mindanao marchers are demanding the distribution of 30,232 hectares of land in Bukidnon and 6,185 ha in Davao Oriental.
De los Reyes told reporters on Monday that the situation in Negros was more complicated than that of Hacienda Luisita.
The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Tarlac land should be distributed to farmers, striking down the stock distribution program implemented by the estate management in 1989.
Then Chief Justice Renato Corona cited the landmark ruling against the Cojuangcos as the reason for the President’s animosity toward him, which led to his impeachment trial and conviction in the Senate tribunal last week.
“Negros is more complicated. Unlike Hacienda Luisita, the land there was broken up into lots. The balance here is 10,000-15,000 lots,” De los Reyes said. “The issues here are technical issues,” he noted.
The DAR placed the undistributed land in the Negros provinces at 120,000 ha. However, the NGO group Task Force Mapalad said the number is 130,000 ha.
The sheer number of land that needs to be evaluated and surveyed is no match to the technical people on the ground, De los Reyes said. He noted that DAR only has eight surveyors in the province. “This is why we will have to bid out the services for surveying,” he said.
Staffing problems
The lack of staff affects other aspects of the distribution process, De los Reyes said.
There is also some resistance from landowners, he said. He noted that a case had been filed in court questioning the powers of the DAR and the Land Registration Authority to annotate the titles.
Task Force Mapalad (TFM), which organized the march, hit the government and the DAR for allegedly dragging their feet on the Negros farmers’ plight.
The DAR still has to issue notices of coverage (NOCs) on more than 300 haciendas on Negros Island, with the backlog of 135,000 ha causing agrarian unrest on the island where landowners continue to brag that they supported President Aquino during the last elections, TFM said in a statement.
“The DAR’s failure to efficiently pursue its LAD (land acquisition and distribution) function for several years caused a huge backlog of 1.093 million hectares of agricultural land as of January 2012, with 94 percent of the backlog privately owned. In 2011, only 54.6 percent of the 200,000-hectare national target has been achieved,” TFM confirmed. With reports from Carla P. Gomez, Inquirer Visayas; Maricar Cinco and Marrah Ericka Lesaba, Inquirer Southern Luzon; and Bobby Lagsa, Inquirer Mindanao