About 30 farmers from Negros Occidental, Batangas, and Bukidnon, wearing sack cloths, held in their own version of the “Oblation run” at the UP Diliman campus in Quezon City yesterday to dramatize their call for the Congress to pass law that will extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program beyond June 2008.

“Our semi-naked run symbolizes our call for freedom from the bondage to the soil as mere farm workers serving the big landlords,” Task Force Mapalad president Jose Rodito Angeles said in a press statement.

CARP will fulfill their dreams of tilling their own land, he said, adding that if it continues for another five years with all the support services for farmers, their quality of lives will improve, the press release said.

The farmers who joined the “Oblation run” belong to various organizations affiliated with TFM currently petitioning DAR to act on the pending land reform cases in the Arroyo-owned Haciendas Bacan, Grande and Paraiso in Negros Occidental, the Herminio Teves land in Negros Oriental, the Henessy property in San Juan, Batangas, and the Fortich Farms in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.

Angeles said they are concerned that these cases will be left unresolved if the CARP will end in June. 

But he said the farmers are happy that the Catholic bishops are taking concrete moves to convince the legislators to pass the CARP extension bill as soon as possible.

INSTALLATION

Meanwhile, TFM has asked the Department if Agrarian Reform central office in Quezon City to supervise the installation tomorrow  of the 23 farmer-beneficiaries  in Hacienda Holbo in Sagay City and of 34 FBs in Hacienda Concepcion in Victorias City to prevent any untoward incident, the press release said.

The FBs belonging to Holbo Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association are worried the landowner, Dr. Jeoffrey dela Paz, will again prevent the installation, Angeles said in the press release.

He said three attempts to install the FBs in the past have failed because of resistance from Dela Paz. He also said they were supposed to have been installed in December 2002 and then in January and in March 2003, the press release added.

The 68-hectare Hacienda Holbo in Barangays Taba-ao and Bulanon was put under CARP coverage in 1988, and in 2002, the

FBs obtained from the Register of Deeds a certified true copy of their certificate of landownership award for an 8.8-hectare portion of the property, it also said.

But    Angeles said that in April 2003, Dela Paz contested the claim of the FBs, claiming  the property had been conveyed to him by the Romulos way back in 1972 through a deed of sale, the press release further said.*

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