Bukidnon farmers took their long-standing battle for land rights to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), demanding justice after over three decades of delays.
Together with Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Sanlakas, and Makabayan Pilipinas, a dialogue between Don Carlos Bukidnon United Farmers Association, Inc. (DCBUFAI) and DAR officials at the DAR Central Office, were held to hold the latter to account on the former's petition to expedite the release of their Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA).
In 1982, DCBUFAI (formerly known as Bukidnon Farmers Association) took decisive action to organize themselves and demanded their rightful inclusion as beneficiaries of the land they have been tilling since 1986 through a petition to DAR.
In November 2012, a national dialogue was held at the DAR Central Office where the agreement reached was to finish and finalize the DCBUFAI revalidation until February 2013. Prior to this, the association has already undergone the revalidation process in 2011.
To date, the petitioners have not received any report from that revalidation process which identified DCBUFAI farmers as qualified farmer beneficiaries. For more than 33 years, there were only two revalidations done by the agency, and still no concrete results and no formal recognition of their rights to the land.