Court Ruling Sends CARP to Its Grave

The government’s agrarian reform program, already inutile as it is, is being mangled even more. Current trends show how more and more agrarian disputes are being taken to the regular courts, where the expertise is on civil and criminal cases, and not to the special agrarian courts under the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) as provided by RA 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

BY KARL G. OMBION
Bulatlat

DUMAGUETE CITY  – Various peasant associations in Negros, a two-province island in central Philippines, last week accused the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), judges, local government units, and big landowners of conniving to completely cripple the already muzzled agrarian reform program, and warned of more protests ahead.

Richard Sarrosa, secretary-general of the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Philippine peasant movement) in Negros, charged that “the big landlord-hacienderos (plantation owners) in connivance with the provincial government and the Department of Agrarian Reform, are bent on crippling the already loophole-ridden Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.”

Sarrosa was referring to the Court of Appeals’ ruling that upheld the decision of the RTC Branch 63, La Carlota City, declaring null and void Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) issued by the municipal agrarian reform office of La Carlota City. The CLOAs were issued to the beneficiaries of the 445-hectare Hacienda Malaga-Cuenca in Barangay (village) Robles, La Castellana town, owned by big landowner-sugar planter Roberto Cuenca.

Cuenca’s case sought to annul the notice of coverage placing his property under CARP after the lapse of four years from the effectivity of CARP on the ground that it amounts to taking property without due process of law.

The RTC judge decided in favor of Mr. Cuenca. DAR appealed the decision, saying the La Carlota RTC committed grave abuse of discretion in issuing orders beyond its jurisdiction.

The appellate court however said that DAR’s petition is without merit and that “what determines the jurisdiction of the court is the nature of the action pleaded.”

The court also said that “The case involves a pure question of laws it seeks from the RTC the interpretation of Section 7 of RA 6657 (CARL), which is in nature of declaratory relief as well as declaration of unconstitutionality of a presidential issuance.”

In the Cuenca case, the court added, there is no agrarian dispute involved, but a simple question of interpretation of the law,” and thus it ruled that “the RTC have (sic) the authority and jurisdiction to consider the constitutionality of a stature, presidential decree, or executive order.”

Dangerous precedent

Sarrosa, on the other hand, said that “This (the ruling) is a dangerous precedent, as this could turn all other agrarian cases filed by the big landlords and hacienderos in regular courts into criminal and civil cases, where the victors are often the moneyed class.”

“This is tantamount to giving judges and landlord-hacienderos the license to bring to criminal courts all agrarian disputes and take them out from the special agrarian court provided in the CARL, and direct the selective implementation or non-implementation at all of agrarian reform program,” Sarrosa added.

“Conspiracy”

Sarrosa said that the recent conference of Philippine judges in Negros, followed by the assembly-workshop of big landlords, sugar planters and compradors from all over the Visayas under the sponsorship of the Concerned Landowners of Negros (CLN), are part of the “ongoing consolidation of the conspiracy between the big landlords, judges and the DAR, against the peasant movement.”

In the conference-workshop, Presidential brother-in-law and congressman Ignacio Arroyo of Negros Occidental’s fifth district, defended the landlords saying “the agrarian law must be implemented according to the law, and the rights of the landowners must be respected.”

Former Cebu governor Pablo Garcia who served as one of the resource persons, echoed Arroyo’s position.

La Castellana Mayor Enrico Elumba, also castigated the CARP, saying it was one of the causes of the reduction of taxes in his town and other municipalities. He said the lands given to agrarian reform beneficiaries have generally been unproductive due to the farmer-beneficiaries’ lack of capacity to develop them. This in turn reduced land taxes for the local government.

Other landowners blamed both DAR and farmers for allegedly making a joke out of the landowners’ productive lands, saying “they have romanticized the idea of agrarian reform so much when they in fact have no capacity to manage and develop it for the good of our economy.”

Jurisdiction

Judge Demosthenes Magallanes of RTC in Bacolod City was however quoted by other media sources as saying “the DAR has the sole jurisdiction over all agrarian cases because the agrarian law or RA 6657 has created a special agrarian court, or the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (DARAB) which shall process and settle or agrarian cases.”

The same opinion is given by human rights and agrarian lawyer Ben Ramos of Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group who said “agrarian matters and agrarian law implementation is a jurisdiction that belongs to DARAB, even if it involves interpretation of the law.”

In a situation where too many landowners, some of whom are public officials, are fighting to have their vast lands exempted from land distribution, it would be a convenient scapegoat for them to turn agrarian disputes into civil and criminal cases because they know they have better chances of winning over the poor peasants,” Ramos added.

Evading CARP

Bulatlat research revealed that there are at least 85 agrarian-related cases pending in different regular courts in the region. Some of these cases involved big tracts of lands that have been applied for land-use conversion under the Comprehensive Land Use Development Plan.

Sarrosa said that “the landowners have turned to regular courts as a convenient way to evade land coverage, and criminalize the peasants’ legitimate struggle for their rights on land they till.”

He also noted how the insincerity and inefficiency of DAR have served to embolden the big landlords and hacienderos to devise evasive schemes and resort to squid tactics, saying “DAR VI regional boss Alexis Arsenal himself admitted that its 27 bureaucratic steps in land tenure implementation is too cumbersome, giving landlords wider room for evasive maneuvers to circumvent land reform, as well as some DAR officials to engage in racketeering operations in agrarian reform.”

“This is further compounded by all sorts of anti-agrarian reform schemes employed by the provincial government and LGUs, such as the Memorandum of Agreement by Governor Maranon, the various land-use conversion schemes cum Comprehensive Land Use Development Plan, and the so called debt-swap to land scheme, to muddle and further exempt big land monopolies from the coverage of the agrarian reform”.

Sarrosa called on farmers and farm workers to strengthen their ranks and rely on their collective strength more than ever before, in fighting for genuine land reform. Bulatlat

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