Farmers say P-Noy gets zero on land reform

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Zero.

Groups of farmers fighting for agrarian reform in estates belonging to some of the country’s wealthiest landholding families gave this grade to President Benigno Aquino III, a member of the Cojuangco clan that had owned Hacienda Luisita, one of the country’s biggest estates at more than 6,000 hectares.

“We give him zero as grade,” said Joseph Canlas, chair of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL), an affiliate of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).

AMGL was one of several groups of farmers from Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, Hacienda Dolores in Pampanga and several estates in Central Luzon that picketed the regional office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) here on Thursday, assailing the Aquino administration’s failure to protect farmers’ interests.

Canlas said the prospect of farmers owning the land they till became dimmer under Mr. Aquino.

Canlas said the DAR had allowed landowners and big businesses to recover lands distributed to farmers or use lands supposedly given to them under the government’s land reform program.

“These are the sins of [Mr. Aquino] to us farmers,” Canlas said.

He said President Aquino should not deliver his last State of the Nation Address as “he no longer deserves to be in office for another day.”

The AMGL contingent left for San Jose del Monte City in Bulacan to protest the alleged control of lands there by the Araneta and Roxas families and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The 200 farmers who joined the Bulacan leg of the protest assailed the Aquino administration for its supposed failure to protect their lands from illegal conversion and land grabbing.

The farmers staged the protest rallies in three sections of the Quirino Highway in San Jose del Monte City.

Eriberto Peña, a leader of farmers’ groups in San Jose del Monte, said some 3,000 hectares of land in five villages of Tungkong Mangga, Paradise 3, San Isidro, Caybanban and San Roque are being converted into an estate by a family related to Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

He said at least 5,000 farmers and their families are in danger of being displaced from their farms because of ownership claims by the Araneta family to lands in their villages.

Farmer Cecil Rapis, 69, said they used to plant and harvest palay, cassava, pineapple, bananas and vegetables in these lands that have since been fenced off and secured by armed guards. Tonette Orejas and Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Inquirer Central Luzon