CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) yesterday announced a week-long camp-out at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) national office in Quezon City starting today (June 5) by farmers from different haciendas in the country including those from Hacienda Luisita, the vast sugar estate owned by Pres. Aquino’s family.
The camp-out dubbed “Kampuhan ng mga Magsasaka sa Hacienda sa Ilalim ng Hacienderong Pangulo” will last until Monday. June 10, the 25th year of what the KMP described as the “sham Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program” of the government.
KMP secretary general Antonio Flores lashed as “farce” the DAR’s claim it has distributed 4.4 million hectares of lands since the Marcos era.
He said the DAR is “hiding the fact that 44 percent of the lands allegedly distributed are public agricultural lands and not the lands of big landlords.”
“In other words, almost two million hectares of public lands were sold by the government to poor farmers instead of distributing the lands for free. Public lands na nga, pinabayaran pa sa mga magsasaka,” he said.
Flores said farmers from Hacienda Luisita, Hacienda Looc and Hacienda Roxas in Batangas, Hacienda Yulo in Laguna, the vast haciendas in Bondoc Peninsula, and Hacienda Araneta in Bulacan and Rizal provinces will join the camp out.
Flores said “the hacienda farmers’ camp-out will show that after 25 years, the CARP is a total failure.”
The peasant group also assailed as “ridiculous” the DAR’s claim that the President has outdone the late Pres. Marcos’ agrarian reform record.
The DAR recently noted that while Marcos had distributed only 70,718 hectares under his 21-year rule, Aquino distributed 251, 876 hectares so far in his term.
“It’s one big joke,” Flores said.
“Marcos’ PD 27 is as bogus as Aquino’s CARP. It only covered tenanted rice and corn lands. Ergo, lands devoted to cash crops like coco lands, sugar lands, and plantations like Hacienda Luisita were automatically exempted by Marcos from distribution. Even rice and corn lands without tenants can never be distributed,” the KMP leader said.
“The truth is Aquino is basically the same or even worse than Marcos. Under Aquino today, rice and corn lands that were already distributed are being foreclosed and are now targets of anomalous infrastructure projects,” Flores said.
He cited the case of Nueva Ecija which was the pilot province of Marcos’ PD 27 where farmers who already paid for their lands are now threatened by foreclosure notices by the Land Bank that is clearly linked to the Central Luzon Urban Beltway project un
