ARB counsel cries foul over DAR statement
The lawyer of the agrarian reform beneficiaries, or ARBs, in Batangas on Thursday cried foul over the Department of Agrarian Reform statement that the certificates of land ownership awards, or CLOAs, in their possession were invalid.
Lawyer Mario Cerro, counsel of the ARBs of Nasugbu, Batangas, maintained that his clients were not even consulted on the 50-50 sharing with Roxas and Company Inc. that was indicated in the consolidated order issued by DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III last year.
Earlier, DAR Undersecretary for Legal Affairs Napoleon Galit said a Supreme Court decision in December 1999 favored the landowner and ruled that the Notice of Coverage issued by DAR was illegal.
“The decision subsequently rendered the CLOAs issued by DAR to the farmer’s groups invalid,” he said.
Cerro added that in the 1999 decision, the Supreme Court did not declare the act of the DAR as illegal and the CLOAs invalid.
Cerro said the 1999 decision said: “We stress that the failure of respondent DAR to comply with the requisites of due process in the acquisition proceedings does not give this Court the power to nullify the CLOAs already issued to the farmerbeneficiaries. To assume the power is to shortcircuit the administrative process, which has yet to run its regular course. Respondent DAR must be given the chance to correct its procedural lapses in the acquisition proceedings.”
“In Hacienda Palico alone, CLOAs were issued to 177 farmer-beneficiaries in 1993. Since then, up to the present, these farmers have been cultivating their lands. It goes against the basic precepts of justice, fairness, and equity to deprive these people through no fault of their own of the land they till,” the SC decision read.
Cerro also stressed that the declarations of the DAR in their press statement and the consolidated order ran counter to what the Court decreed.
In the dispositive portion, Cerro said it must be emphasized that the Court stated: “The petition is granted in part, and the acquisition proceedings over the three haciendas are nullified for respondent DAR’s failure to observe due process therein. In accordance with the guidelines outlined in this decision and the applicable administrative procedure, the case is hereby remanded to respondent DAR for proper acquisition proceedings and determination of the petitioner’s application for conversion.”
“Sadly, no less than the DAR secretary and the director of the Bureau of Agrarian Legal Assistance (BALA), who is at the same time the undersecretary for legal affairs, are advocating these misleading claims, which leads the farmers to ask: Are the DAR secretary and the director for BALA lawyering for the landowner, RCI? Who then will protect the farmers from the mighty landowners?” Cerro added.
He said the award of 1,322 hectares to the landowner contradicts the intention and spirit of the land distribution as mandated by the CARP Law.
“These actions of the secretary and the BALA, if proven true, in the words of the SC in the 1999 decision, go against the basic precepts of justice, fairness, and equity to deprive the people, through no fault of their own, of the land they till,” the legal counsel said.
Deceived, not consulted
In their Motion for Reconsideration filed last 1 February, the farmer-beneficiaries and the residents of Barangay Aga in Nasugbu, which Hacienda Caylaway covers, belied the claims of the DAR.
In the motion, the farmer-beneficiaries questioned the act of their former counsel, lawyer Nenita Mahinay, of agreeing to the compromise agreement without their consent.
The farmers said Mahinay deceived and misrepresented them in this case.
If the consolidated order and 50-50 distribution materialize, about 50,000 residents of Barangay Aga and four other barangays inside Hacienda Caylaway that are being repossessed by Roxas and Company Inc. will be displaced.
The DAILY TRIBUNE sought a comment from the DAR, which said it would release an official statement today, Friday.