May 22, 2009

TFM FARMERS FILE COMPLAINT VS DAR CHIEF BEFORE CHR

Five farmers belonging to the peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM) who were hurt during a dispersal Thursday at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) have filed a complaint against Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and his security guards before the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

In the complaint, Rolando Flores et al. accused Pangandaman of using excessive force for no apparent reason since they were merely telling the guards that they wanted an audience with Pangandaman to discuss urgent concerns, such as the move by former Congressman Herminio Teves to evict the 30 farmer-beneficiaries installed in his former 60-hectare property in Negros Oriental and the processing of 18 landholdings under voluntary offer to sell (VOS) scheme in Negros Occidental.

Edna Sobrecaray, TFM spokesperson, denounced Pangandaman for “acting like a thug and treating the farmers like disposable rugs.”

“Maybe he thinks that if he can beat a well-to-do person at the golf course, he can beat the poor and humble farmers outside his office,” she said.

Auxillary Bishop of Manila and currently head of the National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Bishop Broderick Pabillo criticized DAR’s violent reaction to the farmers’ protest. He has called up DAR Undersecretary of Finance and Management Narciso Nieto after a meeting with the injured TFM farmers and set a conference with DAR officials on Monday to make them explain how violence could have erupted in a supposedly peaceful protest.

“Why are you hurting farmers who are only fighting for their rights peacefully?” queried Pabillo in a phone call to Nieto.

The Bishop’s meeting with DAR Secretary Pangandaman is set on Monday at 11AM at the DAR National office. Expected to be present at the same meeting is former Comelec Chair and TFM Board Chair Christian Monsod, and other representatives of farmers’ organizations.

Others who suffered cuts, bruises, and broken nose from truncheon blows during Thursday’s dispersal were Ronie Babillano, 43; Hernani Roninio, 59; Paulino Quijano, 41; Jose Fernandez, 56; Jimmy Mameng, 39; Victoriano Cordero, 61.

Flores, 55, chairman of the farmer-beneficiaries association in the former Teves land, said he came with three others from Negros Oriental because the Teveses have been using legal pressure and physical violence to remove them from the land awarded to them by DAR in November last year.

On the other hand, Sobrecaray said that the score of farmers from Negros Occidental wanted to follow up with Pangandaman about DAR’s promise last March to install farmer-beneficiaries that already have certificates of land ownership award (CLOA), generate CLOAs for lands that have already undergone valuation by the Land Bank of the Philippines, review cases that already have claim folders, and continue with the processing of VOS cases.

She said there are 18 VOS landholdings involving 2,655 hectares and 1,225 farmer-beneficiaries whose claim folders have been pending.