No land reform in Nueva Ecija

No land reform in Nueva Ecija

“We all know that Nueva Ecija is the country’s rice granary but farmers still do not own the lands they till and worse, they are being displaced because farm lands are being converted.” – Joseph Canlas, AMGL chairman.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – With thousands of farmers facing displacement, peasant groups branded Nueva Ecija province as “a classic model of the bankruptcy of the government’s agrarian reform program.”

According to data gathered by the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL, Peasant Alliance in Central Luzon), farmers in various parts of the province are facing cancellations of Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA), Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT) and Emancipation Patents (EP) and foreclosure.

The group recently held a Caravan against Land grabbing and Displacement and visited Guimba, Muñoz, Cuyapo, Quezon, Licab, Aliaga, Jaen and Sta. Rosa towns.

“We all know that Nueva Ecija is the country’s rice granary but farmers still do not own the lands they till and worse, they are being displaced because farm lands are being converted,” said Joseph Canlas, AMGL chairman.

Cases

The AMGL cited the case of farmers from villages Manggang Marikit, Bagong Barrio and Yuson (Mambayu) in Guimba town.

More than a hundred hectares that used to be part of Hacienda Davis have been covered by Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during the 1990s. The land was leased by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and Land Bank of the Philippines to the Philippine Cotton and a Taiwanese agro-corporation.

The Mambayu farmers cultivated the land from 1992 until the Provincial Agrarian Reform Office (PARO) came up with a list of farmer-beneficiaries called ListaSaka in 2007. Members of ListaSaka who were able to position themselves in some parts of the land sold parcels of land to a religious sect.

The PARO filed ejectment cases against the Mambayu farmers that reached the Court of Appeals in 2010. The court decision in some of the cases were favorable to ListaSaka while some are pending. Since last year, the PARO, Municipal Agrarian Reform Office (MARO), Philippine National Police (PNP) in Guimba and the provincial police and the 81st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army have been forcing the Mambayu farmers to vacate the land, AMGL said..... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/09/01/no-land-reform-in-nueva-ecija/