|
By Ira Karen Apanay, Senior Reporter
SECRETARY Lito Atienza of the Department of
Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has ordered the agency’s
regional officials in Batangas to survey a disputed 2,000-hectare land in Calatagan town and then
immediately distribute it to all farmer-beneficiaries.
Atienza over the weekend told the regional
officials to implement a 1965 Supreme Court order that called for
the distribution of the land owned by the Ayalas, one of the
country’s richest families, to the farmer-beneficiaries.
The land, however, has stayed with the owner
despite a writ of execution issued in June 1988 for the enforcement
of the 1965 decision of the High Court. A petition to quash the writ
was filed by the Ayalas in July of the same year but the Supreme
Court denied the petition in July 1999 with finality.
“We are now vigorously pursuing the land
distribution program of President Gloria Arroyo and we expect the
field officers of the DENR to alleviate poverty in the countryside
by hastening the awarding of land titles to the poor,” Atienza
said.
“[If the problem is with the survey], the DENR
will help them [regional officials],” he added. Atienza warned
that he will hold the officials liable if they are found responsible
for delaying the writ’s implementation.
Some 50 farmers have encamped at the DENR main
office in Quezon City since April 30 to voice their complaint over
the non-enforcement of the High Court’s order of March 25, 1988.
They belong to the Samahan ng Magbubukid ng Batangas (Sambat), an
affiliate of the activist peasant alliance Kilusang Magbubukid ng
Pilipinas, and Haligi ng Batangueńong Anak Dagat (Habagat), an
affiliate of the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng
Pilipinas.
Atienza said farmers in 19 villages (barangay
units) will benefit from the writ’s enforcement.
The contested land is part of a 12,000-hectare
estate owned by the Ayalas. It used to be a sugarcane plantation
that had been exempted from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP).
“Not implementing the writ is a clear example
of bureaucratic insensitivity causing a lot of problems, especially
when the poor are deprived of their land,” Atienza said.
Sambat and Habagat said the family of Jaime
Zobel de Ayala was able to keep its 10,000-hectare estate in
Calatagan by converting the property to pasture lands, commercial
farms, and livestock farms. The conversion, although allowed under
CARP, paved the way for the exemption.
The groups alleged that the Ayalas further
annexed 2,000 hectares of foreshore land in Calatagan to their
10,000-hectare prime agricultural estate, and later sold the
expanded property to real-estate and beach-resort developers despite
the existing decision of the Supreme Court. Sambat and Habagat have
asked the Ayalas to leave the foreshore land and allow the DENR to
resurvey the site.
The Ayala family has clarified that there is no
High Court decision ordering any of its members to distribute any
piece of land in Calatagan to agrarian-reform beneficiaries.
|
