The Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries in Barangay Aga, Nasugbu, Batangas are up in arms over the 50-50 deal proposed by the Department of Agrarian Reform in its Consolidated Order. 

They argue that the portion allocated to Roxas and Co. encompasses the prime land they currently occupy, while the half they are left with consists of mountainous terrain unsuitable for habitation.

According to the DAR’s Consolidated Order, the department resolved that it “deems more equitable if the sharing arrangement would be equal or on a fifty-fifty basis, at least substantially, after deduction of some portions of areas resolved with finality.”

“A 50-50 sharing, after deduction of those resolved portions in some isolated cases, is viewed as fair, logical, and in consonance with social justice, which merits a greater consideration in this instant dispensation. Hopefully, this will provide an acceptable and final solution to this long-protracted battle between FBs/ARBs and the LO, whereby the former is assured of about one-half portion of the landholdings that may be eventually shared equally among themselves individually and over which they can, henceforth, exercise full dominical rights of disposition given the passage of Republic Act 11953, otherwise known as New Agrarian Emancipation Act,” the decision read.

ARB Gilbert del Mundo, head of Barangay Aga’s Agrarian Reform Council, said they would be thrown out to Barangay Palico, a mountainous area without electricity and potable water.

“In the map they gave us, we are the losers. We think we got only one-fourth of the property. We are being thrown to the fields and forests. How will our children go to school? They are going to destroy our houses. For what, to build malls and subdivisions? What were they thinking? We are here legally. We were born here, we will die here,” De Guzman said in Filipino.

Hacienda Caylaway has a combined area of 867.4571 hectares, the most populated as five barangays — Bilaran, Cogunan, Catandaan, Keparo and Aga — are part of it.

Distribution to start

Reacting to the exposé on the land distribution by DAILY TRIBUNE, Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado M. Estrella III denied Tuesday that the farmers in three haciendas in Nasugbu, Batangas, have been dispossessed of their land by Roxas and Co. Inc. 

He said they would instead be given individual parcels of land as agreed upon in a compromise agreement between the parties.

In a statement Monday, Estrella said the farmers were from Haciendas Palico, Banilad and Caylaway.

He said this resulted from the Consolidated Order issued by the DAR on 29 December 2023, which became final and executory as of 30 January 2024, after no party filed a motion for reconsideration or appeal within the 15-day mandatory period to contest the consolidated order.

Estrella said the parties finally resolved their issues through their combined efforts and DAR.

 The agreement states that one-half of the property, estimated at 1,322 hectares, will be distributed to the 1,200 farmers.

The Supreme Court, in a ruling on 17 December 1999, declared the Notice of Coverage issued by the DAR as illegal, which subsequently invalidated the Certificate of Land Ownership Award issued by the DAR to the farmers. 

Seeking to fully and finally end the pain of four decades of litigation, both Roxas and Co. Inc. and the farmers, by mutual consensus, agreed to withdraw all pending appeals and cases at the Supreme Court and the Office of the President and yield to the exclusive authority and jurisdiction of the DAR.

Estrella said DAR will now process the distribution of parcels of land to the 1,200 farmers. All the operational aspects and proceedings involving identification, technical description, and the approval and issuance of individual farmer titles shall follow.

The resolution of the dispute, he said, was proof that “social justice upholds both the welfare of the farmers and the landowners.”

He said the resolution of agrarian cases was in line with the marching orders of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to clear the backlog of rural cases and that equal protection of the law be exercised in the settlement of disputes.