Makabayan bloc legislators, Cong. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna, Cong Fernando Hicap of Anakpawis, and Cong Emmi de Jesus of Gabriela received the initial reports of the recently concluded International Fact-Finding mission conducted in Rodriguez, Rizal and Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. | Photo by Dexter Aserdano/Manila Today

A recently concluded fact-finding mission pointed the families of President Noynoy Aquino and his Interior Secretary Mar Roxas in a trend of rights violations against farmers in long standing agrarian disputes involving the two official’s kin.

Led by Amihan, a national federation of peasant women, and the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), and participated in by human rights defenders and advocates from Australia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia, the four-day mission was held in Barangay Mascap, Rodriguez town in Rizal Province and Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.

According to the report, the peasant families of Brgy Mascap, also known as Hacienda Doronila-Araneta, face the threat of eviction from the 1,644 hectare agricultural lands that they have been cultivating. On account of a February, 2014 Supreme Court ruling effectively canceling all awarded lands to the farmers that have formerly been issued to them through Presidential Decree 27 and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

The farmers of Brgy. Mascap are asserting that the wholesale cancellation of their land ownership has been the result of the “unfair legal maneuvers” employed against them by real-estate magnate Jorge Araneta who ranked 29th in the Forbes list of Philippines most richest. Araneta whom peasants claim to be aggressively claiming ownership of the said land for years is an uncle of DILG Secretary Mar Roxas.

Meanwhile, in Hacienda Luisita the mission report cited a list of alleged human rights violations against supposed farmworker-beneficiaries of the vast sugar estate. Cases have transpired in a span of two years even after the landmark decision of the Supreme Court on April 2012 ordering the distribution of Hacienda Luisita from the Cojuangco-Aquino clan.

Almost a thousand hectares of farmlands have been fenced with barbed wires and concrete walls upon the orders of erstwhile Luisita owners in the villages of Balete, Lourdes, Cutcut, Parang, Central and Mapalacsiao.

Florida Sibayan, a peasant leader in Hacienda Luisita presents a copy of fact-finding mssion's initial report to the Lower House of Congress. | Photo by Dexter Aserdano/Manila Today
Florida Sibayan, a peasant leader in Hacienda Luisita presents a copy of fact-finding mission’s initial report to the Lower House of Congress. | Photo by Dexter Aserdano/Manila Today

It can be remembered that Sec Mar Roxas during the heat of the 2010 campaign brushed off the issue saying that he is no longer concerned with the issues as the land is not owned by Roxas’s but by his forebearers, the Aranetas. He also said that he will not push for agrarian reform in the said area since, it is not an agricultural land, Roxas claimed.

The initial report of the fact-finding mission was submitted to the House of Representatives and was received by congressmen from the Makabayan bloc led by Anakpawis Party-list Rep Fernando “Ka Pando” Hicap.

Representative Fernando "Ka Pando" Hicap of Anakpawis Party-list. | Photo by Dexter Aserdano/Manila Today
Representative Fernando “Ka Pando” Hicap of Anakpawis Party-list. | Photo by Dexter Aserdano/Manila Today

The progressive solon commented on the cases of the two haciendas saying that it underscores the failure of the government to deliver social justice despite its protracted and costly land reform program. The situation in Brgy. Mascap and Hacienda Luisita according to Hicap is not in fact unique but forms part of a “general national pattern of land grabbing that is victimizing millions of hapless farmers.”

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