LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — President Rodrigo Duterte wants to end the social injustice committed to farmers and Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the country by giving them the land due them.
This was what Agrarian Reform Secretary John Castriciones told more than a hundred farmers, who are all IPs in this upland province, in a dialogue at the Benguet Provincial Capitol on Tuesday afternoon.
“The President is giving us the message that he really loves the farmers and as much as possible, he would like to address the issue of social injustices that our farmers have experienced in the past century,” Castriciones said, telling his audience to hold on and expect a brighter future under a government that is after the welfare of the farmers and IPs. He said the President has ordered his department to distribute some 500,000 hectares covered by land reform to farmers, who have been waiting to own a title over the land they have been tilling for decades.
This is separate from the President’s plan to have a law that would convert government lands suitable for agriculture but have been idle for 30 years and up into agricultural land for distribution to farmers for food production.
He added, his office is now fast-tracking the settlement of over 14,000 land cases, which have been pending in the department since 2013.
He said he makes sure his department acts on 20 to 30 cases daily.
In relating Duterte’s desire for the IPs to benefit from the government’s agrarian reform program, Castriciones cited, for example, the case of tourist resort Boracay, which the President wants to be given back to the island’s indigenous people called the Ati.
“What the President told me and specified in many of his speeches and in cabinet meetings is that I must distribute Boracay to the IPs, the aborigines of Boracay,” he said.
Castriciones explained that the late former President Ferdinand Marcos issued Proclamation 1801, classifying the island as a tourist destination. During Gloria Arroyo’s term, Proclamation 1064 re-classified the same area as a government-owned land. “Because of that, there was a survey of Boracay, which was re-affirmed by the Supreme Court in deciding DENR vs. Yap,” the Secretary said.
Boracay, he said, has 1,028 hectares. Of this, 400 hectares are forest land and 628 hectares are agricultural land, which is alienable and disposable.
Castriciones said the Boracay’s indigenous people, the Atis, numbering about 48 to 70 families, have been displaced because of businessmen grabbing lands. Now, he said, the President assured the island’s farmers and IPs will get their land back through a comprehensive land reform.
The agrarian reform chief also informed the Benguet IP-farmers of the government’s new credit facility, which allows an individual farmer to borrow up to PHP50,000 from state-owned Landbank of the Philippines at a minimal 6-percent annual interest rate.
The loan program, he said, aims to aid small farmers and protect them from so-called loan sharks or abusive money lenders. **PNA
