Twelve farmers, jailed by police here since Nov. 4 on charges of grave threats, walked free on Tuesday to the cheers of at least 500 other farmers protesting the sale of a 700-hectare property across the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx) that they wanted covered by land reform.
The detained farmers, aged 19 to 52, are members of the Aniban ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Hacienda Dolores (Aniban), a group of tenants or longtime tillers of the disputed property that was sold to LLL Holdings (LLLH) and the FL Properties and Management Corp. (FLPMC).
“The problem began when the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) exempted the [disputed] landholdings from the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) in 2005,” said Antonio Tolentino, Aniban president.
The sale also led to FLPMC allegedly encroaching on 200 hectares of land covered by a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title, according to Aeta leader Conrad de la Cruz.
The 12 farmers were jailed after the LLLH and FLPMC complained to police that they allegedly threatened to kill guards securing their property on Nov. 4.
Aniban had objected to a plan to fence off the contested property in Porac. Its members marched on Tuesday to the police station to protest the arrest of the farmers, who were charged with grave threats.
But they left the police station here at 1:35 p.m. on Tuesday after the two companies filed an affidavit of desistance, which allowed Assistant Provincial Prosecutor Otto Macabulos to release the 12 farmers, according to lawyer Anselmo Carlos, counsel of the two property firms.
The 12 farmers stepped out of jail wearing yellow shirts. They raised their fists and vowed to continue the campaign to have the contested lands covered by CARP.
“We had no intention to fight back. We were just stopping the construction of the fence,” said Victor Tolentino, one of the jailed farmers.
He said the fencing should have been suspended because Aniban was still waiting for the results of a second DAR ocular inspection that was conducted there recently in response to Aniban’s petition to reclaim the lot for land reform.
Aniban credited Porac Mayor Condralito de la Cruz for brokering the release of the 12 farmers. De la Cruz said the “only condition set by the companies was that the dispute be peacefully resolved.”
But Tolentino said that “our fight is not over [because] the farms are ours.”