Posted on 09:20 PM, December 16, 2009 [ BusinessWorld Online ]
Haciendas owned by sugar-based conglomerate Roxas and Co., Inc. are covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, the Supreme Court has ruled.
It said the certificates of land ownership issued previously to farmer-beneficiaries at the haciendas of Banilad, Caylaway and portions of Palico should be respected.
In a 30-page decision penned by Associate Justice Conchita Carpio Morales, the high court en banc dismissed the firm’s bid to convert its properties into non-agricultural areas and exempt them from land redistribution under agrarian reform.
Roxas & Co.’s position is based on Presidential Proclamation 1520, which on Nov. 28, 1975 declared certain areas in the towns of Maragondon and Ternate in Cavite, as well as Nasugbu in Batangas, as having “potential tourism value.”
The three haciendas, covering a total of 3,000 hectares, are all in Nasugbu, Batangas. The high court said the proclamation did not mean automatic reclassification.
In fact, the proclamation required studies to determine such tourism potential, it said.
“The [proclamation] directed the Philippine Tourism Authority (PTA) to identify what those potential tourism areas are. If all the lands in those tourism zones were to be wholly converted to non-agricultural use, there would have been no need for the [proclamation] to direct the PTA to identify what those ‘specific geographic areas’ are,” the ruling stressed.
Sought for comment, Pedro Roxas, executive chairman of Roxas & Co., said his firm will appeal the decision.
The high court said the proclamation was comparable to similar proclamations declaring parts of the Philippines as possible tourism zones.
These proclamations did not intend to reclassify all agricultural lands “in one fell swoop,” the court said.
“It bears emphasis that a mere reclassification of an agricultural land does not automatically allow a landowner to change its use since there is still that process of conversion before one is permitted to use it for other purposes,” the high court noted.
The court also debunked Roxas & Co.’s claims that another directive had converted the lands, in particular several parcels of Hacienda Palico. The firm had invoked the Nasugbu Municipal Zoning Ordinance No. 4, which reclassified the haciendas into non-agricultural use to exclude six parcels of land in Hacienda Palico.
The high court however noted there were discrepancies in the documents. Only nine parcels in the same hacienda are covered by the zoning ordinance as shown by documents. -- Ira P. Pedrasa
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