Friday, May 23, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Secretary Lito Atienza ordered yesterday the implementation of the 1965 Supreme Court decision mandating the distribution of land owned by the Ayala family in Calatagan, Batangas to its beneficiaries under the agrarian reform law.
Atienza ordered the regional DENR office to implement the distribution of some 2,000 hectares of land owned by the Ayalas in Calatagan to its beneficiaries, citing the long pending writ of execution issued in June 1988 for the enforcement of the SC decision.
The Ayalas have filed a petition to quash the writ but the SC had turned it down in July 1999.
Atienza said the distribution of the land is part of the Supreme Court order that authorized the distribution of the concerned property that formed part of the total 12,000-hectare estate owned by the Ayalas.
“Not implementing the writ is a clear example of bureaucratic insensitivity causing a lot of problems, especially when the poor are deprived of their land,” Atienza said.
The DENR said the 12,000-hectare land, which used to be a sugarcane plantation, had been exempted under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
The beneficiaries under the Samahan ng Magbubukid ng Batangas (Sambat) and Haligi ng Batangueñong Anak Dagat (Habagat), among other groups, have camped outside the DENR main office in Quezon City since April 30 urging implementation of the SC order on the Ayala estate.
Sambat and Habagat said the Ayalas managed to keep their 10,000-hectare land holdings in Calatagan, depriving thousands of families of their legitimate rights to former sugar lands.
They claimed the lands were converted into commercial and livestock farms in an attempt to evade land distribution under the agrarian reform law.
Atienza said farmers in 19 barangays would benefit from his directive to distribute the Ayala landholdings, in accordance to the 1965 SC order. – With JC Cordon
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