Attack on land reform in Capiz kills farmer

Farmers on this land in Capiz find titles issued to them by the government to be useless against attacks by groups opposing agrarian reform. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

ILOILO CITY—Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano on Sunday condemned Saturday’s fatal shooting of an agrarian reform beneficiary and the wounding of four others in a land dispute in Capiz province.

Mariano, in a statement, also ordered the Western Visayas office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to investigate and prevent the escalation of violence in the disputed property at the boundary of President Roxas and Pontevedra towns.

“Necessary steps must be done to prevent further injuries,” Mariano said as he expressed condolence to the families of the dead and wounded.

More policemen have been sent to the disputed property that straddles the village of Culilang in President Roxas and Dulangan in Pilar, said Senior Insp. Rachel Garnica, police chief of President Roxas.

5 suspects

Garnica said police used witnesses’ testimony to track down at least five men who opened fire at 60 agrarian reform beneficiaries who had been occupying a parcel of land owned by a Nemesio Tan and administered by Ferdinand Bacanto, village chief of Culilang.

Farmer Orlando Eslana died from gunshot wounds in the back while his sister, Melinda Eslana-Arroyo, is in serious condition after she was shot in the head.

Ana Bocala and Nida Amo were hit in the leg while Adel Vergara suffered a wound in the elbow.

The survivors and the farmers group Task Force Mapalad (TFM) accused Bacanto’s relatives of perpetrating the attack.

“They tried to ram us with a tractor,” said one survivor in a phone interview. “I dived and kept on rolling on the ground as I heard more gunshots.”

The survivors asked that he not be identified for security reasons. He said Eslana, the slain farmer, climbed the tractor with a cane knife after he saw one gunman, identified as Leopoldo Lachica, shoot Melinda.

“We didn’t have guns,” said the survivor.

Village chief Bacanto refuted the farmers’ story. He said it was the farmers who started the violence.

Eslana, the slain farmer, “tried to hack my uncle (Lachica),” Bacanto said.

He said a daughter of Lachica tried to parry the hacking and her finger was slashed. “That’s when the shooting started,” Bacanto told Inquirer.

Bacanto said he had not seen who fired the shots, though.

“We will cooperate with the investigation and if any of my men are involved, they will give up voluntarily,” he said.

The victims are among a group of recipients of Certificates of Land Ownership Award (Cloa) who occupied the 198-hectare land on Tuesday. The land was awarded to farmers in 1997.

Gideon Umadhay, agrarian reform director for Western Visayas, said the farmers had been issued titles to the land but a regional trial court in Capiz prevented them from occupying it.

Legal maneuver

Landowner Tan, who died in 2013, had filed cases to stop the issuance of Cloas and the installation of beneficiaries on the land.

One of the survivors said the farmers decided to occupy the land because it had been 20 years since it was awarded to them. “How long must we still wait?” he said.

The farmers occupied three hectares of the 198-hectare area and erected fences and tents on the land on Monday.

But Bacanto, the village chief, insisted that the farmers had no legal basis to occupy the land.

This was refuted by the land beneficiaries.

“We will not leave the area,” said one of the survivors. He said a wake for Eslana, the slain farmer, would be held on the property.

The group TFM called on the DAR to install the farmers and protect them.

Eslana, said TFM deputy national coordinator Lanie Factor, “gave up his life because of the inaction of the government.”