victory in Hacienda Velez Malaga:

a story of willpower and sacrifice for land rights

28 February 2008

Hacienda Velez-Malaga in Negros Occidental is where the Task Force Mapalad recently fought a decisive battle for land rights against an influential businessman-landowner, marking a major victory for the agrarian reform beneficiaries of the hacienda as well as land rights petitioners in other landholdings facing similar crisis, and advocates of genuine agrarian reform.

The story of that struggle is worth sharing because of the rich experience and potential lessons that may be derived from it.

Located in barangay (village) Robles, municipality of La Castellana in central Negros Occidental, Hacienda Velez Malaga is owned by Roberto Cuenca, a businessman-landowner who is well-connected in the corridors of power. His son was former husband of the daughter of Congressman Ignacio Arroyo, brother-in-law of the President and also known as an anti-Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) landowner. Cuenca and Rep. Arroyo are also colleagues in a coalition of landowners formed in 2005 to oppose CARP in the province.

The land dispute

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) placed the hacienda under CARP in 1996 but Cuenca subsequently filed a case before the regional trial court (RTC) to annul the CARP coverage. He also dismissed from their jobs the farm workers who applied as CARP beneficiaries.

But DAR went on with the process of identifying and qualifying the farmer beneficiaries. It conducted the final process in 2000 at the town plaza, declaring 122 potential beneficiaries as claimants to the property.

By the time TFM came to Hacienda Velez Malaga around the same year, the farmer beneficiaries were already steeped in a land dispute with Cuenca.

The DAR personnel had been slapped earlier with contempt charges, constraining them to make any moves until the annulment case was decided. The potential beneficiaries were waiting to become actual beneficiaries, but they did not know how long the court case would last.

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