Mindanao farmers start march to Manila

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines—Disgruntled farmers in Mindanao, who have remained landless as the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) nears its end after 25 years of implementation, will embark on a long march to Malacañang from here, starting Monday, to press the distribution of large tracts of land owned by a few families.

They will ask President Aquino to fulfill the promise he made to Task Force Mapalad (TFM) in June 2012 that there will be equal distribution of land, according to Alliance of Land Rights Movement in Mindanao (Alarm-Mindanao), which is spearheading the protest.

Despite the President’s pledge to TFM, which has been fighting for agrarian reform in Bukidnon province, Romeo Brioso Sr., Alarm-Mindanao’s chair and spokesman, said some 10,000 hectares of agricultural land on the island have remained in the hands of a few.

“The Consunji-controlled South Davao Agricultural Corp. owns 845 hectares in the Davao provinces; the Cojuangcos have 764 hectares in Agusan del Sur while the family of former Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo has 111 hectares in Davao City alone through  Lapanday Group,” he said.

Brioso said the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) had not issued notices of coverage (NOCs) to the owners. He cited as an example, the Ayalas who own about 590 hectares of land in Davao del Sur, but the government did not consider their property for distribution.

“Now, after two years of waiting with uncertainty, we are going back to Malacañang to claim what he had promised,” he said, citing the 2012 march that had prompted Mr. Aquino to tell TFM: “You will have land.”

TFM-allied farmers also traveled to Malacañang from Mindanao then to meet the President.

Brioso said his group was expecting hundreds of farmers to join the 1,000-kilometer walk across the country to Metro Manila. In Bukidnon, he said, some 300 farmers had confirmed participation.

“The time left for the  DAR to issue the NOCs is apparently not enough, given its plodding, turtle-like pace, and this would allow landowners to hold on to their properties and be ‘saved by the bell,’” he said.—Bobby Lagsa, Inquirer Mindanao