CA‎ grants Aboitiz clan petition to exclude parts of land from CARP

MANILA, Philippines–The Court of Appeals has granted the bid of the Aboitiz clan to exclude 59 hectares of property from the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) coverage.

In a 14-page decision by the appeals court’s special 11th division through Associate Justice Victoria Isabel Paredes, the petition filed bythe Aboitiz family led by Jaime Jose Aboitiz, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Aboitiz Power Corporation has merit thus reversing the Office of the President’s ruling in 2012.

The appellate court noted that the petitioners main business was cattle-raising and not agricultural business.

“Petitioners have sufficiently shown that the subject lot had been devoted to livestock raising even before the passage of the CARL (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law), and that one of the main consideration for the lease of Lapanday way back in 1975 was to gain access to bananas which replaced the cumbersome method of milling rice and corn to produce bran mixed with molasses and pasture grass, and then used as feed for its cattle herd,” the appeals court said.

The appeals court said the presence of banana trees did not mean that the property was used for agriculture purposes.

“Thus, the presence of banana trees on the subject lot at the time it was leased to Lapanday must be placed within the context of how it figuired on the totality of the running of the cattle ranching business which, in the case at bar, was an integral and necessary component in the cattle and livestock-raising business of petititoners,” the appeals court said.

The appeals court, in its ruling, pointed out that DAR has no power to regulate livestock farms which have been exempted by the Constitution from the coverage of agrarian reform.

The Aboitiz clan, in their petition said that while the subject lot was leased to Lapanday to address the need of bananas for their cattle, the same was abandoned by Lapanday on Oct. 31, 2011 due to caso fortuito (fortuitous events).”As as necessary consequence of Lapanday’s abandonment of the subject lot, the same reverted back to a grazing land,” the appeals court said.

“It could not have been the intention of the framers of the Constitution that lands exclusively devoted to livestock which, in the interm, were planted. [with] bananas to address a cattle raisers’ need for food for their cattle and which finally became new grazing land for their cattle would be covered by CARP,” the appeals court added.

Based on the records, the Aboitiz family bought the cattle ranch from Enrique Zobel back in 1970.

To avoid the trouble of planting, cutting and hauling home-grown supplement or grass for its feedlots, leased a portion of the land to Lapanday Agricultural and Development Corproation (Lapanday), to ensure that its cattle herd will have a steady and dependable cattle food in the form of non-exportable bananas.On April 20, 1998, the Aboitiz family filed an application with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the exclusion of Lot 467-A , covered by TCT No. T-25916 from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) on the ground that the land holding is devoted to the raising of livestock.

On May 2, 2000, the DAR granted a portion of the application but increased the CARP coverage from 51 hectares to 59.09 hectares.

It denied the motion for reconsdieration filed by the Aboitiz family, prompting it to appeal the matter before the OP, but the latter denied the same in a decision on Sept. 7, 2012.

“In the instant case, we find that, contrary to the findings of the OP and its subalterns, the subject lot had always been actually devoted exclusively to livestock farming, with an interim agricultural activity for livestock feeds, even before the enactment of the CARP and thus, exempt from its coverage,” the appeals court said in reversing the OP’s decision.

Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Vicente S.E. Veloso and Pedro Corales.

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