Negros Land Ejection Enrages Farmers

Tensions have run high in Hacienda Bino, barangay Orong, Kabankalan since Jan. 16 morning after members of Kauswagan sg Mangunguma kag Mamumugon sg Bino (KASMMABI) blocked the entry of an ejection team led by Regional Trial Court (RTC)-Kabankalan sheriff Roberto Repeque, who came to enforce the execution order of MTCC-Kabankalan to retake the six hectares of lands occupied by the farmers organization.

By Karl G. Ombion
Bulatlat.com/Cobra-ans

Kabankalan City – Barely few weeks after the violent confrontations between certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) holder farmers and the armed group of a big landlowner in Hinigaran town - and just days after a new agrarian reform secretary was appointed - confrontations erupted anew in this city.

Tensions have run high in Hacienda Bino, barangay Orong, Kabankalan since Jan. 16 morning after members of Kauswagan sg Mangunguma kag Mamumugon sg Bino (KASMMABI) blocked the entry of an ejection team led by Regional Trial Court (RTC)-Kabankalan sheriff Roberto Repeque, who came to enforce the execution order of MTCC-Kabankalan to retake the six hectares of lands occupied by the farmers organization.

The farmers told Bulatlat.com that they were preparing for their farm work and other community activities when at around 8 a.m. the ejection team, backed by police authorities, two tractors of Kabankalan Multi-purpose Cooperative based in PHILSURIN-Kabankalan, and several motorcycles boarded by demolition crews, came to tell the farmers to vacate the six-hectare portion of the 66 hectares they occupy.

Repeque said the eviction order was based on the decision of Judge Rolando Chavez of MTCC Kabankalan last June 2001, charging the farmers of forcible entry.

The 39 household members of KASMMABI were the second batch of farmers to occupy the land in question in Hacienda Bino, after they were awarded the CLOA in 1998. The lands they won were formerly owned by landowner and former 6th district Rep. Hortencia Starke, and leased by B&J Ventures Corp. reportedly owned by Kabankalan Mayor Pedro Zayco, Joshua Garido, Boy Abada, and Joseph Fernandez.

Immediately after the takeover, the B & J Ventures Corp. filed a case of illegal and forcibly entry at the MTCC claiming that portions of the lands taken over by the farmers belong to their lease contract not covered by CARP and CLOA. In June 2001, the MTCC issued a decision finding KASMMABI of forcible entry.

Confrontations ensued in the enforcement of the execution. Nine farmers of KASMMABI were detained for four days and later released with P81,000 bail.

The farmers’s efforts to reverse the court decision proved futile. They also filed set of petitions at the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.

Anna Marie Mijares and Eva dela Rama, leaders of KASMMABI told Bulatlat.com that they have tried several times up to the last minute to negotiate with the B&J Ventures, the DAR, and the mayor, but all failed to respond positively. The two leaders even claimed that Mayor Zayco told them recently that “wala na ko mahimo kay basi macontempt pa ako.” (I can’t do anything because I might be cited for contempt).

On Jan. 16, the enforcement unit came to execute the MTCC decision to return the lands to what the court said were the rightful owners, but were encircled and stopped by members of the KASMMABI and their supporters. The unit left late in the afternoon when they found it hard to enforce the order.

The farmers however told Bulatlat.com that they have doubled up their security as they gird for the ejection team’s return in their bid to demolish their homes and farms.

Meanwhile, Negros Oriental 3^rd District Rep. Herminio “Meniong” Teves this week criticized the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) as flawed. He said that the agrarian reform program only focuses on land distribution but overlooks the primordial objective of making these CARP lands productive for the tillers.

Teves said CARP is besieged by land valuation disputes, landowner resistance and other problems which he said makes the program’s implementation more difficult.

“Thus even if they have their own lands, these CARP beneficiaries and poor farmers have become increasingly into rebel recruitment by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP),” the congressman said.

It was the militant peasant organization, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) which first scored the CARP claiming it to be anti people and favoring big landlords. The law was passed during President Corazon Aquino’s term as an offshoot to the killing of scores of peasants marching to Malacañang in 1987.

CARP has also been tagged by tagged by some sectors as one big  “money making venture” by agrarian reform officials. Bulatlat.com

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