Eriberto Pena, president of 10 different farmer groups here said they are pushing for a dialogue with Department of Agrrarian Reform (DAR) officials this coming week to fight for their rights on the lands and vowed not to give up and leave the farms they have been tilling for almost 30 years.
Pena told Punto! that there was no public hearing or consultation called upon them on the establishment of the mega train project terminal which would displace the livelihood of some 700 members of their group.
He said the farms which many of them started to till in 1990 are part of the 300-hectare target structure and facility site of the MRT-7 terminal in Tunggkong Mangga and Barangay Ciudad Real and remain a high disputed agricultural land.
Pena said the properties were previously owned by Marcos cronies and were sequestered by the national government during the administration of President Corazon Aquino.
He stressed that the current Aquino administration should not abandon them when it was during the previous Aquino administration that they were given the opportunity to till the farms.
Pena also said the government should also work hard and exhaust all efforts to retain agricultural lands in the country while paving the way for industrialization and urbanization.
“Hindi kami tutol sa MRT-7 project, ang tinututulan namin yung gagawing pagpapaalis sa amin at wala na kaming lupang masasakahan. Hindi kami puwedeng ilipat sa ibang lugar kasi may lupa na ring sinasaka doon,” he said.
Edward Ignacio, Administrator of City of San Jose del Monte said however that the land has been classified already as part of the “Plan Unit Development Zone” under the city’s comprehensive land use program (CLUP).
Ignacio further said that the farms are also privately owned and the city government does not have a hold over their disposal, sale or retention.
Ignacio said although the MRT-7 will cover the villages of Tungkong Mangga and Ciudad Real, there are still ten other more farm villages in City of San Jose del Monte for farmers to be the source of their livelihoods.
Ignacio added that as the farmers would seek a new livelihood opportunities, they are giving new prospective in life for their children to move on to next higher level of finally have outgrown the lives of being plain farmers and land tillers. “Hindi ba magandang pagkakataon ito para sa mga magsasaka natin na mag-level up sa hanapbuhay at ang kanilang mga anak ay maiangat mula sa pagiging mga magsasaka,” he said.
Educational assistants, scholarships and other similar grants including job opportunities are also being regularly given by the city government not only to farmer’s children, Ignacio further added.
Pena said they have been preventing the land developments in the said area.
He vowed that they will continue to assail and oppose and conduct mass action until the government hear their pleas to keep them in the area and not take away from them the farms that have been the source of their livelihood for almost three decades now.
Some 100 of them led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) trooped on Friday and picketed President Aquino’s residence at Times St. in Quezon City and the DAR office also in Quezon City and assailed the project which they claim would “bulldoze more than 300 hectares of disputed agricultural lands.”
