Davao farmers back Pagdanganan

Agrarian Reform Secretary Roberto M. Pagdanganan has found allies in four groups of farmer-beneficiaries in Davao del Norte, which have openly expressed full support on him for upholding the law despite tremendous pressure from some belligerent peasant organizations.

Pagdanganan won the trust and confidence of farmer-beneficiaries after he stood his ground and defended the decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board (Darab), exempting the 984.3695 hectares of land owned and managed by the Floirendo Group of Companies from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

In a four-page position paper addressed to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the farmers said the order of Secretary Pagdanganan had straightened up the issue once and for all since the disputed properties are outside the scope of the Republic Act 6657, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), for having slopes above 18 percent.

The groups belonging to Wadecor Employees Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Wearbempco), Central Tadeco Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Ctempco) Nestfarms Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Nempco) and Paheco Employees Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Pahempco) added that most areas of the properties are also devoted to livestock.

"The law clearly provides that areas above 18 percent slopes as well as those devoted to livestocks are exempted from CARP," the position paper signed by officials of the four farmers’ cooperatives stated.

Among those who signed the paper were Wearbempco chairman Helmer Malacao, Ctempco chairman Ariston Polinar, Nempco chairman Zaqueo Gomez and Pahempco chairman Jover Pelletero.

The groups said they expressed no surprise to series of protest staged by the Pambansang Ugnayan ng mga lokal na Nagsasariling Organisasyon sa Kanayunan (Unorka), saying that it has been known for bullying DAR officials whenever they issued decisions Unorka did not like.