LAND TRANSFER. Assistant Regional Director for Operations of the Department of Agrarian Reform-1 Venchito Mandap offers an alternative to land usage and ownership to the Hijo Employees Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperative-1(HEARBCO-1) as the Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association, Inc. occupies the 145 hectares of land at Barangay Madaum in Tagum City. Mandap says only 117 hectares of land are intended for Marbai. (Earl O. Condeza/davaotoday.com)
TAGUM CITY, Philippines – Antonio Tuyak, 61, has been a farmer for the last 35 years before the land he was tilling got into a land dispute with Lapanday Foods Corporation.
For six years, Tuyak and his wife resorted to other means of living. He drove motorcycle and sold binangkal (bread), while his wife sells suman, a rice delicacy.
Tuyak is among the 159 agrarian reform beneficiaries and members of the Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association Inc., (Marbai) who now occupy a portion of the banana plantation in Barangay Madaum here.
Agrarian reform officials are now telling the Lapanday Foods Corporation to exercise corporate social responsibility and allow the Department of Agrarian Reform to enter the property and dileanate the area for the agrarian reform beneficiaries.
In a meeting held in Barangay San Isidro here, assistant Regional Director Venchito Mandap said they are concerned with the 483 beneficiaries, among whom are Marbai members.
Marbai is occupying a total of 145-hectare land which comprise an area called Sanid.
“Your concern is only the corporation, what we are after is the peace for 483 people. Can you help us or give us an idea on how we can have, at least harmonious… Will a person without clear source of income be happy? Imagine they were not able to use the land for six years,” Mandap told representatives of the LFC who attended the meeting called for by the city crisis management committee.
“You want to protect the property, we want to protect lives,” Mandap said.
Mandap suggested that they enter the property to identify which part of the area will be given to the members of Marbai.
The meeting was called for by the city crisis management committee, headed by Tagum City mayor Allan Rellon to ease the tension following another attack by alleged company guards on Wednesday, the second this week.
On Friday, Dec. 9, the agrarian reform beneficiaries held a protest action and took over the area. After three days, security guards attacked the farmers, wounding seven of them. The latest attack injured two protesters.
Lapanday denied the attack. It said it sought police assistance to investigate the presence of armed men who were seen within the areas of Hearbco1, the same area which the Marbai members occupied.
Lapanday, in a statement, said Hearbco1 acknowledges the existing contracts with LFC. It said Hearbco1 is in conflict with “a breakaway group of its former members led by Mely Yu who has been engaging armed men to inflict violence and disrupt operations in the farm.”
“Mely Yu and her group were ousted as officers of the majority of HEARBCO1 in 2011 and since then, her group has caused severe damage to the cooperative,” it said, adding that the internal conflict could be the reason for the incident on Monday.
Atty. Leilanie Espejo, legal counsel for Lapanday said if the Marbai will be allowed to occupy the contested area in Sanid, “Where will be Lapanday’s area now under the compromised agreement?”
Espejo said under the compromised agreement, the contested area is managed by Lapanday.
Espejo said in 2010, there was a struggle by the farmers that incurred big loses for the cooperative. Lapanday filed a case against the cooperative headed by Yu.
She said a case was filed by Lapanday against Hearbco1 which ended into signing a compromised agreement, under which the land management was given to Lapanday.
Espejo said another agreement between Hearbco1 and Marbai was signed wherein the scattered areas of the farmer beneficiaries under Marbai will be concentrated in the Sanib area.
“Incidentally, that area is also managed by Lapanday,” she said.
She said the payment for the loses that the Hearbco1 incurred is taken from the profit from that managed area.
“All the proceeds from the managed area are paid to the account of the cooperative,” she said.
Espejo said if the Marbai takes over the area, where will Lapanday get its payment for the advances.
“In fact, dako og advances ang coop. Pero sa among supplemental agreement ni-agree ang Lapanday nga bawasan og P200 million ang ilahang account. Dako na kaayo og gihatag ang Lapanday sa coop. Kini karon dako na pud kaayong problema,” Espejo said.
(In fact the cooperative has incurred large amount of advances. But in our supplemental agreement, Lapanday agreed to decrease their account by P200 million. Lapanday has given too much for the coop and now this is aggravating the problem.)
Agrarian reform beneficiaries asserted their rights as government-recognized beneficiaries and owners of 145-hectare land which is managed by LFC under a compromised agreement with the Hijo Employees Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Cooperation 1 (Hearbco1).
Marbai members decided to leave Hearbco1 as their former cooperative to cultivate the land themselves.
The beneficiaries was awarded a collective Certificate of Land Ownership Award under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in 2010.
Anakpawis Partylist Representative Ariel Casilao said “for decades the agrarian reform beneficiaries were trapped with the inequitable arrangement that incurred them of about P1 million debt to Lapanday.”
“Naturally, the ARBs petitioned to DAR for individual distribution that it ordered on June 21, 2010, which Lapanday challenged until a Davao City Regional Trial Court decided in favor of the agricultural workers and farmers in April 2011,” he said.
Tuyak said Hearbco1 was indebted to Lapanday for more or less P1 million that started the contract in September 2011.
Tuyak said they also have an agreement with Hearbco1 that the entire Sanid area comprised of 145-hectares will be given to Marbai because Hearbco1 is incurring debt from LFC.
In December 2015, provincial agrarian reform adjudicator Jose Nilo Tillano, issued a ruling for the farmers to be installed in the contested area.
In June 3 this year, Tuyak said they tried to enter the land area but failed because the Lapanday security guards prevented them from entering.
Marbai members did not attend the meeting which was supposed to be a dialogue because of fears that security guards of Lapanday might take over the area if they leave.
The crisis management committee decided to hold another dialogue in the Marbai protest on Monday, December 19.
Tuyak told Davao Today in an interview that they only wish for a speedy resolution of the case and hopes Lapanday will give the farmers their due.
“We only have this land for our family,” he said. (davaotoday.com)
