Sunday morning, I woke up to another wonderful news! :)
Sumilao exodus ends; now the planting begins
By TJ Burgonio, Michael Lim Ubac
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:04:00 03/30/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Young Higaonon farmer leader Napoleon Merida Jr. has been having recurring dreams of planting crops in the verdant fields of Sumilao, Bukidnon, since December.
Now, 24-year-old Merida and the rest of the 166 Higaonon farmers can start tilling more than a third of the 144-hectare ancestral land that they had been struggling to reclaim for more than 10 years.
“After the celebration, I can start planting palay and corn,” Merida, president of the San Vicente Landless Farmers’ Association composed of second-generation Higaonon farmers, told the Inquirer yesterday.
Today, the farmers will be flown home to Mindanao on an Air Force C-130 plane for a thanksgiving Mass to be celebrated by Malaybalay Bishop Honesto Pacana and Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma.
In a compromise settlement principally brokered by Manila Archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales, the property owner San Miguel Foods Inc. (SMFI) agreed to donate 50 hectares in the original site to the farmers, and acquire the remaining 94 ha elsewhere.
‘Everyone won’
A joint statement by the two parties released by Malacañang said:
“All protagonists have won. SMC will be able to continue with [its] project and has also clearly demonstrated that it is a corporation with social responsibility.
“The farmers will get the land they have sacrificed and worked for through many years with a promise of a better life for their families.”
According to the statement, the government has “demonstrated its commitment to land reform and social justice, and that it is a government that cares for the poor and is committed to fighting poverty.”
It said the Church, led by Cardinal Rosales, also “played its role as a Church of the poor and peacemaker on earth.”
“Much can be done if we work together,” it added.
Signing rites
The contending parties formally signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) spelling out the terms of the settlement at the chapel of the San Carlos Seminary in Guadalupe, Makati City, with Rosales and Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo among those serving as witnesses.
“Definitely, this is a big victory for the farmers,” Rosales said later in an interview.
The signing ceremony ended with cheers from the farmers, wearing white T-shirts and white headbands, who had marched all the way from the headquarters of Caritas Manila.
“Today, our exodus ends. Today, we finally become tillers of the land we have owned since the beginning,” said 21-year-old Elgine Merida, reading from the farmers’ prepared manifesto.
Even San Miguel Corp. (SMC) president Ramon Ang, who had broached the idea of the 50-ha donation to the farmers, heaved a sigh of relief.
“I’m happy because this had a happy ending,” Ang said.
SMC, Southeast Asia’s largest food and beverage firm, is the parent company of SMFI.
Backdoor negotiations
The MOA ended three months of “backdoor negotiations” mediated by Rosales between the farmers and SMFI executives.
The basic agreement was sealed as early as March 3, the two camps said in a statement. The MOA was finalized only on Friday night, according to Napoleon Merida.
The signatories were Ang and SMFI president Francisco Alejo, Napoleon and Samuel Merida, Larry Carejo and Mercy Serona from the farmers’ side, Antonio Medina of the Norberto Quisumbing Management Development Corp. (NQMDC), and Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and Philippine Information Agency Secretary Conrado Limcaoco in behalf of the President.
The others who signed as witnesses were Christian Monsod, a consultant of the farmers, their legal counsel Arlene Bag-ao, and SMFI lawyer Wilfredo Peñaflor.
According to the joint statement on the MOA read to the media:
SMC is to release 50 ha in the original site to qualified farmers “by deed of donation” and acquire 94 ha in adjacent lands to complete the 144 ha claimed.
The rest of the disputed land will remain with SMFI as it pursues its plan to convert the property into an agro-industrial complex.
The farmers have identified their preferred parcels of land outside the original site from a list provided by SMC, and have also organized a new cooperative, Panaghiusa sa mga Mag-uumang Nakigbisog alang sa Yuta sa Sumilao (Panaw-Sumilao), composed of initial qualified beneficiaries to be named owner of the land.
Pangandaman, under orders from President Macapagal-Arroyo to expedite the process of determining the qualified farmer-beneficiaries, has conducted a technical survey delineating the 50 ha.
All pending cases on the land dispute are to be dropped.
Courtesy call
The farmers later called on Ms Arroyo in Malacañang to present her a copy of the settlement agreement and thank her for her support.
They were accompanied by Limcaoco, Pangandaman, Ang and Fr. Anton Pascual, the executive director of Caritas Manila.
Both Pangandaman and Ang declared the settlement agreement a “win-win solution.”
Emerging from the meeting with Ms Arroyo, Ang told reporters that SMC had turned the title to the 50-ha property over to the farmers.
“Today, upon signing [of the agreement], they now own the land. Tomorrow, when they return, they will step on land that belongs to them,” Ang said.
According to Pascual, the Sumilao land is “not only a pastoral but also a personal [issue]” for Cardinal Rosales, who was assigned to Bukidnon as a bishop 20 years ago and personally knows the farmers.
Pascual thanked Ms Arroyo for intervening in the land dispute, saying: “Through her, the wheels of justice turned and she was able to help the farmers.”
‘Triumph of persevering spirit’
Arlene Bag-ao described the agreement as “a triumph of the farmers’ persevering spirit.”
Ang, who gave much of the credit to Rosales for the forging of the agreement, said he thought of donating the 50 ha the first time the farmers protested SMFI’s agro-industrial project.
“We were surprised when they started complaining. We thought we had ironed out everything with them. During the public hearing most of them signed the endorsement for us to put up the factory,” he told reporters.
The DAR originally awarded the land to the farmers in 1995 through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. But in 1996, on appeal by landowner Norberto Quisumbing through the NQMDC, then Executive Secretary Ruben Torres Malacañang reversed this and approved the land’s conversion from agricultural to agro-industrial.
In February 2002, the NQMDC sold the 144-ha property to SMFI.
In November 2004, the farmers petitioned for the cancelation of the conversion order, charging that NQMDC had violated the terms by not implementing the five-year development plan that it had proposed to undertake on the land.
In October 2007, the farmers walked from Bukidnon to Manila to take their case to Malacañang.
“We would have wanted that they give us the whole 144 hectares so we won’t be far apart. But we’re happy as it is,” Napoleon Merida said Saturday.
Said Marlon Manuel, a lawyer for the farmers: “A lot has happened, and we believe that this is the best long-term settlement.”
Voluntary offer to sell
Manuel said the 50 ha would be opened for cultivation to all qualified farmers, including those who did not go through the initial process of identification.
The 94 ha, on the other hand, will be put under the CARP’s Voluntary Offer to Sell scheme, and will be acquired by the DAR from SMC on the farmers’ behalf, he said, adding that it would be up to the DAR and SMC to process the scheme.
Ang said SMC had acquired the 94 ha, which could be occupied and tilled in a month’s time.
“We’ve made the advance payment. But the amount is not important. What’s important is that the farmers are happy,” he told reporters.
He said the land could be paid for “over a period of 30 years.”
Ang said the MOA signing could be just the start of a partnership with the farmers.
He said SMFI would provide new means of livelihood, and build infrastructure such as schools, markets and hospitals once its agro-industrial complex became operational.
SMC offers help
“Despite the misunderstanding, and the bad publicity, we will continue the project, and we will support everything that you need. Whatever you need, we will help you,” Ang told the farmers.
He said SMFI had decided to invest on farm land in Sumilao with the intention of making good business and helping the farmers.
He stressed that when the company bought the land, it was unaware of any land dispute between the former landowner and the farmers.
“We had no bad intentions when we went to Sumilao. We never intended to hurt the rich, much less the poor,” Ang said.
Rosales’ tribute
During the signing ceremony, Rosales paid tribute to Ang for his sincerity and to the farmers who, he said, by their “faith in God, goodwill and trust [in other people],” helped seal the agreement.
“God gave us light and inspiration so that any problem here on earth will have a solution. This is the solution offered by God. Thanks to God,” the cardinal said.
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