ANGELES CITY– A fact-finding group decried yesterday the pending dislocation of thousands of families in five barangays in Casiguran, Aurora after they were told to abandon their homes and farms to give way to tourism and other projects lined up under Republic Act 10083 or the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Act (APECO).
In a telephone interview, Joseph Canlas, chairman of the Alyansang Magbubukid ng Gitnang Luson (AMGL), said no less than 5,430 farmers, including those holding Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA), Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT), Emancipation Patents (EP) and Integrated Social Forestry (ISF) certificates, have received notices of eviction.
“They were not informed of any alternative relocation,” said Canlas who was contacted in Casiguran as he was part of the fact finding team now there for a five-day “national fact-finding and solidarity mission on APECO.”
Apart from AMGL, the other groups in the team are the militant fisherfolk group Pamalakaya-Pilipinas, church group Promotion of Peoples’ Response (PCPR), Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), Pagkakaisa para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (PATRIA), government employees’ group Courage and Government Employees for Genuine Land Reform (GE4GLR), indigenous peoples’ group KAMP and Katribu Partylist and Karapatan human rights group.
The mission started yesterday and will last up to June 26.
Canlas said the mission is “to identify the effects of Republic Act 10083 or the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Act (APECO) on the residents of Casiguran and nearby towns as the law provisioned to cover 13,000-hectares of land.”
Canlas cited a report from an Aurora-based farmers’ group indicating that APECO project threatens farmers cultivating their lands since the 1960s; farmlands at Barangah Esteves; farmers who have Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA), Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT), Emancipation Patents (EP) and Integrated Social Forestry (ISF) certificate; home and livelihood of fisherfolk communities and even Dumagat tribal communities and ancestral domain.
The report also cited alleged land grabbing and status conversion of private lands, as well as coercion of farmers to sell their lands.
APECO was sponsored by the Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara and his father Sen. Edgardo Angara at the House of Representatives and senate, respectively. It was enacted on April 22, 2010, about a year after it was filed on the lower house on April 20, 2011.
“Initial reports and previous results of information gathering illustrate that five barangays with a population of 5,430 are directly affected by APECO. The lands and homes of farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people are threatened to be converted by the project,” said Canlas.
“APECO is a classic model of a legislated program that is only to serve the interest of big landlords and bureaucrat capitalists… at the cost of destroying the lives and livelihood of the Casiguran farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples,” Canlas added.
He noted that APECO “is a blown up version of Republic Act 9490 or Aurora Special Economic Zone Act of 2007 (ASEZA).”
