[ Manila Bulletin Online ] February 16, 2009
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel Jr. said yesterday that the 92-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Isabela, Negros Occidental is not covered by the suspension of land acquisition under Joint Congressional Resolution 9 which extended the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program by at least six months.
As this developed, Pimentel asked the government to give its final approval for the distribution of the Hacienda Bacan, which is owned by the family of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, to the legitimate agrarian reform beneficiaries and remove one of the causes of raging social conflicts in sugarlandia.
Pimentel explained that there is no legal obstacle to the parceling and distribution of the hacienda to the farmers since the Arroyos had voluntarily offered to sell the property to the government as early as 2001.
"What was temporarily suspended by Joint Resolution l9 was the compulsory acquisition of private lands under CARP. And since Hacienda Bacan was offered to the government under the Voluntary Offer to Sell (VOS) scheme, the resolution could not be invoked to prevent the final turnover of the property to the government for distribution to agrarian reform beneficiaries," he said.
Pimentel noted that all the requirements for the state takeover of Hacienda Bacan under the law and rules and regulations of the Department of Agrarian Reform had been fully complied with last year.
In view of this, the Land Bank of the Philippines deposited R42.3 million as just compensation to the owners.
"What then is keeping the government from finally disposing the case of Hacienda Bacan? The farmers have waited for more than eight years to acquire the agricultural lands that they are legally entitled to. Nothing can be gained by further delaying the turnover of the property to the farmers except to engender enmity and civil unrest, and cast doubts on the government sincerity to implement CARP," he said.
During a Senate hearing last November, it was revealed that the DAR’s takeover of Hacienda Bacan was being held back by the refusal of Negros Occidental Register of Deeds Rodolfo Gonzaga to sign the transfer of the property from the Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corporation, also owned by the Arroyos, to the government.
Gonzaga refused to cancel Rivulet’s title to the hacienda and its transfer to the government on the ground that the Land Bank payee should be First Gentleman Arroyo supposedly because of a notation at the back of the land title that Mr. Arroyo had a lien on the property.
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