ANGELES CITY- A complainant in an impeachment case filed yesterday against Pres. Aquino said the administration had used P5.4 billion of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds to compensate land owners whose lands were covered by land reform, with his family getting P471.5 million for Hacienda Luisita.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said it has dug up a statement from Agrarian Reform Sec. Virgilio de los Reyes that said “in October 2011, a Notice of Cash Allocation in the amount of P7.932 billion corresponding to appropriations in the General Appropriations Act of both 2010 and 2011 was released to the Landbank and that a part of the amount, P5.4 billion, was through the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).”
“Clearly, Delos Reyes’s admission shows that DAP funds were used to compensate landowners, including the Cojuangcos who got P471 .5 million of DAP funds as compensation for Hacienda Luisita,” KMP Chair Rafael Mariano noted.
The KMP also quoted De los Reyes as having said that “from 2011 to June 2014, Landbank disbursed P4.052 billion representing the cash portion of landowners compensation to more than 4,000 landowners whose lands were distributed to farmer-beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.
The landowners of Apo Fruits Corp./Hijo Plantation and of Hacienda Luisita are but two of the more than 4,000 landowners paid by the Landbank.” The group also noted De los Reyes’ clarification that “the P5.432 billion was not an augmentation of the fund for Landowners Compensation” and that “the entire P7.932 billion corresponds to the 2010 and 2011 appropriation for landowners compensation in the GAA for those years.”
The group did not say when and where De los Reyes made the statement. But Mariano said De los Reyes’ statement was a “damning evidence against the President, Budget Secretary Butch Abad, Delos Reyes, and the Cojuangcos’ scheme to plunder the DAP funds.”
“Why did the DAR use the DAP when it has a definite, regular, and specific appropriation for 2010 and 2011 for landowner compensation? It should have pushed the release of the budget instead of utilizing the DAP,” Mariano asked.
In a statement, the KMP noted: “If the entire P 7.932 billion was for 2010 and 2011, the DAR paid P372,569.28 per hectare of the 21,290 hectares approved for landowner compensation.
This is obviously overpriced and a far cry from the average P44,000 per hectare.” It cited figures from the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council that “in 2010, there are 740 landowners approved for compensation by the LBP for 7,476 hectares and in 2011, there are 748 landowners approved by the LBP for payment covering 13,814 hectares.”
Mariano noted, however, that despite the almost half a billion in compensation using DAP funds, Hacienda Luisita remains under the control of the Cojuangcos. “That’s brazen plunder of DAP funds,” he said.
He said De los Reyes’ statement belies Aquino and Abad’s claim that the DAP was used supposedly to pump prime and stimulate the economy. “The P5.4 billion of DAP funds that was used for landowners compensation is obviously non-productive.
Big and parasitic landlords, like the Cojuangcos, did not use the money for production but in building concrete walls around Hacienda Luisita’s prime agricultural lands and deny farmworker beneficiaries from cultivating their lands,” he also said.
“The billions of pesos paid to Apo Fruits/Hijo Plantation is highly questionable. An agribusiness venture arrangement (AVA) was implemented in the plantation to circumvent actual land distribution,” he said. Mariano lamented that “billions of taxpayers’ money were given by Aquino and Abad to big agribusinesses as a giveaway.”
He noted that “the DAP controversy reinforced farmers’ assertion that the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which expired last June 30, was a cash cow of big landlords like the Cojuangcos.” The KMP joined the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) in filing an impeachment complaint against the President.
