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By Jomar Canlas Reporter
The President’s brother-in-law,
Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo, on Monday defended
the Biofuels Act and insisted he did not use that law to exempt his
family’s plantation from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program
(CARP).
In a text message sent to The
Manila Times, he said there is no truth to the allegations that the
Biofuels Act will protect the sugar lands, including his family’s
157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Isabela, Negros Occidental, from
agrarian reform.
On Monday, The Times published a
story filed by Vera Files, which said Rep. Arroyo had completed in
March the submission of all government requirements needed for the
land to be converted for agro-industrial use, particularly to
produce ethanol.
Vera Files are stories written by
veteran journalists, who said they take “a deeper look into
current issues.” (See related story on the front page.)
The congressman declined to be
interviewed for the Vera Files story.
“Biofuels Act is good for the
country,” Arroyo told The Times. “It will lessen our dependence
on fossil fuels, which are harmful to the environment. The Biofuels
Act is not anti-CARP. These are all unfounded fears. Because we
don’t have oil reserves, we should look into other sources of
fuel.”
Republic Act 9367 or the Biofuels
Act of 2006 was the platform used during the election campaign of
former Bukidnon representative, now Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Arroyo and Zubiri co-authored the
bill on biofuels, which are used for automobiles and derived from
sugarcane, coconut and jatropha.
Based on the Vera Files report,
lawmakers who pushed for the Biofuels Act stand to gain a windfall
from converting their plantations into corporate farms where the
crops used to make biofuels are planted. The farmer-beneficiaries of
agrarian reform claim the conversion serves to evade CARP, which
covers rice, corn and sugar lands.
The conversion will nullify the
claims of 67 farmer-beneficiaries who have been waiting for more
than a decade for the Department of Agrarian Reform to award them
Hacienda Bacan, the report said.
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