Farmers Asked Mar Roxas to Stop Araneta Landgrabbing

Farmers from Barangay Tungkong Mangga, San Jose Del Monte City, Bulacan protested at the offices of Araneta Properties, Inc. in Makati against its landgrabbing. Leaders and members of Tungkong Mangga Upland Farmers Association, Inc. (TMUFAI), San Isidro Samahang Sandigan ng Magsasaka (SASAMAG), Samahan ng Magsasaka sa Sitio Dalandanan (SAMAGDA) and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) called on vice-presidential candidate Mar Roxas to act on his relatives’ harassments and displacement of farmers in the said area.

The groups said that the 200-hectare agricultural land covering their farms is the site of the inter-modal station of the MRT 7 project. The Aranetas have started displacing farmers by filing unlawful detainer charges, particularly in Sitio Dalandanan. They have demolished 16 houses last November and presently they are threatening another 12 farming families. The farmers vowed to oppose succeeding efforts of the Araneta family. Some of these families have been cultivating the lands for 30 to 40 years.

“We call on vice-presidential candidate Mar Roxas to stop his kin from displacing farmers. We dare him not to establish his own Kamag-anak, Inc. like Noynoy Aquino and prove that he is for the people like what he is saying in his political advertisements,” said Wilfredo Marbella, KMP Deputy Secretary-General.

“The lands at Tungkong Mangga are not owned by the Aranetas as they have been foreclosed by Manila Banking Corp. during the Marcos’ dictatorship, who used it as collateral to acquire loans from the Central Bank. During the Aquino government, the MBC was sequestered as it was owned by Marcos cronies and ill-gotten wealth was used to acquire it. Generally, the land being claimed by the Aranetas had been already paid for by public funds, thus, it should now be subjected to land reform,” said Marbella.

In 1998, DAR has been preparing to issue Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) to the farmers when the Aranetas filed a petition for exemption. Until now, it has not been processed and is currently at the discretion of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC).

The Gregorio Araneta Inc. is now represented by Gregorio “Greggy” Araneta III, married to Irene Marcos and thus a son-in-law of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. They are also relatives of vice-presidential candidate Mar Roxas from the J. Amado Araneta lineage and the clan of Jesus Araneta Lacson de Arroyo of Negros.

“Mar Roxas’ relatives are already cashing in on lands such as those of San Miguel Corp., SM Development Corporation and Universal LRT Corporation and now they are planning another Araneta Center in Tungkong Mangga, which will be the site of a train station, commercial and residential establishments and bus terminal. This is just the first in our series of protest,” Marbella said.

“We do not oppose the MRT 7 project but it should not be used to displace the farmers. They should place it in another location and not in farms that they will have to convert. Mar Roxas should do what he is promising in his ads, and stop giving the poor only lip-service,” Marbella said.

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