Coron in cinematic touches
CORON is everything the reality of paradise is on earth! This I exclaimed to myself as soon as I set foot on the island nestled on the northern tip of the long island of Palawan which straddles the coastlines of Southern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Such a biblical imagery of paradise was what I needed to set in “Bakit Kailangan ng Ibon ang Pakpak?”, one of the movies I directed during the heyday of my filmmaking career.
Ah, Coron! I gushed in awe. Nature in its purest, most pristine innocence. You wade into the water and the little fish in their many colored varieties instead of rushing away in fright playfully bit at your foot as in a gentle caress. You look at caves atop the rocky walls of the eerily quiet Kayangan Lake and you marvel at Tagbanua natives gathering nests of balinsasayaw — the edible bird’s nest soup you delight at in expensive Chinese restaurants. You enjoy endlessly, if only the sight of it, the caper of various underwater species as you explore the beautiful wonders of rare dive spots, if not playfully chasing all sorts of wildlife on adjoining Calauit Island.
Like idyllic scenes from a fantasy movie, these imageries come flashing on my mind as I come across this disclosure in a media account.
“Thirty-six years. That’s how long some 1,000 farmers from the towns of Coron and Busuanga in Palawan have been fighting for their right to own the land they’ve been tilling for who knows how long.”
The land the farmers are claiming consists of 2,000 hectares. It said that in their earnest desire to acquire ownership of the land, the farmers had resorted to a legal suit, petitioning the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to award to them the land, invoking the provisions of Republic Act 6657 (otherwise known as the “Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law”).
However, it turned out that the land forms part of the vast Yulo King Ranch (YKR), which definitely won’t let go of a property that is almost the size of Metro Manila. And, according to insiders, it would not be a surprise if the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would decline a request from DAR to order the partitioning from the YKR of the 2,000 hectares petitioned for ownership by the farmers. Why? Power play. As simple as that. YKR is reportedly owned by a reputed Marcos Sr. crony, Luis Yulo.
But then again, a twist comes into play. The 2,000 hectares that the DENR refused to turn over to the DAR was already awarded in 2009 to New San Jose Builders Inc. (NSJBI), the company that was established and owned by no less than Jerry Acuzar.
To cut a long story short, the supposed turnover of the 2,000 hectares of land isn’t actually benefiting the farmers. And if there’s somebody jumping in jubilation over the DENR position, that would perhaps be Mr. Acuzar, who by the way is the secretary of the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development.
Power play, that seems all there is to the controversy.
Flashback, as the film director in me would put it. In 1975, then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. issued Proclamation 1387 declaring YKR a pasture reserve.
Following the fall of the Marcos regime in 1986, YKR was among the properties sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) on allegations that they formed part of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth.
The administration of the YKR was then transferred to the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), which converted the property to the Busuanga Breeding and Experimental Stations.
In March 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the government to lift the sequestration of the YKR, citing mismanagement by the bureau.
The court noted that when the BAI took over its management in 1986, the ranch had 75,477 cattle and 115 horses. By 2005, there were only 2,565 cattle and 76 horses left on the ranch.
Two months before she stepped down, then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Presidential Proclamation 2057, authorizing Philippine Forest Corp. (Philforest) to administer the development of idle lands covered by the pasture reserve indicated in Marcos’ Proclamation 1387.
Under Arroyo’s proclamation, the PCGG, BAI and other government agencies were told to stop and refrain from introducing further activities in the area, and were also ordered to turn over assets, rights and other interests over the property to Philforest.
In April 2013, former Philforest president Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada, the whistleblower against Arroyo in the anomalous NBN-ZTE broadband deal, alleged that Arroyo’s midnight proclamation benefited the real estate company owned by the brother-in-law of then-Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.
Lozada even showed the 2009 contract between Philforest and Acuzar’s NSJBI. The deal awarded the company 2,000 hectares of land in Busuanga, Palawan, under the Busuanga Economic Productivity out of the Idle Land Agreements.
While all contracts of the awardees, including NSJBI, were canceled in December 2011 due to their failure to show project development plans, Lozada said some contracts were reconsidered, including that of NSJBI.
The sinister plots and twists behind efforts to keep the Yulo King Ranch away from the agrarian reform law deserves a Golden Globe Award — with Best Screenplay and Best Director going to, who else but, this author!