By Edu Punay (The Philippine Star) |
Updated November 6, 2014 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines - The Court of
Appeals (CA) has stopped the government from seizing a 59-hectare land of the
Aboitiz family in Davao by placing it under coverage of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
In a 14-page decision, the special
11th division of appellate court granted the petition of Jaime Jose Aboitiz,
executive vice president and chief operating officer of Aboitiz Power Corp.
It declared the subject property as not
covered by CARP and reversed a 2012 decision of the office of the President.
In a nutshell, the CA held that the
land is not being used for agricultural business and therefore could not be
covered by CARP.
“Petitioners have sufficiently shown that the
subject lot had been devoted to livestock raising even before the passage of
the CARL (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law), and that one of the main
consideration for the lease of Lapanday, way back in 1965, was to gain access
to bananas which replaced the cumbersome method of milling rice and corn to
produce bran mixed with molasses and pasture grass, and then used as feed for
its cattle herd,” read the ruling penned by Associate Justice Victoria Isabel
Paredes.
The CA cited as proof the presence of banana
trees in the property.
“The presence of banana trees on the subject
lot at the time it was leased to Lapanday must be placed within the context of
how it figured on the totality of the running of the cattle ranching business
which, in the case at bar, was an integral and necessary component in the
cattle and livestock-raising business of petitioners,” it explained.
“In the instant case, we find that,
contrary to the findings of the OP and its subalterns, the subject lot had
always been actually devoted exclusively to livestock farming, with an interim
agricultural activity for livestock feeds, even before the enactment of the
CARP and thus, exempt from its coverage,” the CA said in reversing the OP’s
decision.
The appellate court also gave weight to the
claim of petitioner that while the subject lot was leased to Lapanday to
address the need of their cattle for bananas, it was abandoned by Lapanday on
Oct. 31, 2011 due to fortuitous events.
“As a necessary consequence of Lapanday’s
abandonment of the subject lot, the same reverted back to a grazing land,” it
stressed.
“It could not have been the intention of the
framers of the Constitution that lands exclusively devoted to livestock which,
in the interim, were planted to bananas, to address a cattle raisers’ need for
food for their cattle and which finally became new grazing land for their
cattle would be covered by CARP,” the CA added.
Associate Justices Vicente Veloso and Pedro
Corales concurred in this ruling.
Records showed that the Aboitiz family bought
the cattle ranch from Enrique Zobel back in 1970.
To avoid the trouble of planting, cutting and
hauling home-grown supplement or grass for its feedlots, leased a portion of
the land to Lapanday Agricultural and Development Corp. (Lapanday), to ensure
for its cattle herd a steady and dependable cattle food in the form of
non-exportable bananas.
On April 20, 1998, the Aboitiz family filed an
application with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the exclusion of
property from CARP on the ground that the land holding is devoted to the
raising of livestock.
On May 2, 2000, the DAR granted in part the
application with respect to Lot 467-A-2 but increasing the coverage over the
subject lot from 51 hectares to 59.09 hectares.
It denied the motion for reconsideration
filed by the Aboitiz family, prompting it to appeal the matter before the OP,
but the latter denied the same in a decision on September 7, 2012.
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