‘Investigate Caloocan shooting’

The House Committee on Justice chaired by Samar Rep. Marcelino Libanan yesterday ordered an investigation of a shooting incident last Thursday while congressmen were conducting a public hearing in the area.

The committee was conducting a hearing at the Holy Spirit Parish Church on the reversion of land titles to residents of Pangarap Village in Caloocan City from Carmel Farms Inc. owned by Gregorio Araneta III.

About four armed men, suspected to be hired guards of Carmel Farms Inc. (now Carmel Development Inc. where Araneta is chairman), allegedly fired their guns indiscriminately around noon Thursday in Lower Tawi-Tawi. The incident was interpreted by Pangarap residents as another act of harassment by Araneta and his alleged hired guns. No one was hit.

"The committee (on justice) will seriously look into these acts of harassment. We will make sure this (fight to get back the land from the Aranetas) will not get away this time (in reference to the several times their dream ("pangarap") has turned to nightmare because the case has found no permanent solution)," Libanan said before a crowd of some 1,000 residents.

"The shooting (if meant to disrupt the hearing) was meant to demean the committee, to thwart the investigation. If true, that was an insult to the House and we deplore the uncalled for show of force," said Caloocan Rep. Enrico Echiverri, who initiated the filing of the reversion case in favor of the government and the residents of the controversial property.

Libanan, for his part, condemned the act even as he ordered the local police to conduct appropriate investigation into the incident. He is also taking the case to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), urging them to look into the incident.

Libanan’s committee was conducting a hearing on the disputed 156-hectare property being claimed by Araneta on one hand and some 30,000 residents now occupying the area consisting of two barangays.

Slugs and empty shells apparently fired from Armalite rifles and .38 caliber revolvers were found at the scene by media and the police shortly after the incident.

Earlier, two buses of Autobus Transport allegedly owned by the Aranetas, fully-loaded with male persons, allegedly applicant- drivers scheduled to take a drive test in the village, tried to enter the sandbagged main gate where militant residents were holding vigil.

Meanwhile, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has stepped into the Pangarap Village land dispute. DENR Secretary Heherson Alvarez has recommended to the Office of the Solicitor General the filing of a cancellation case against the titles of Carmel Farms, Inc. and reversion of the contested land to the government.

This, after investigation of DENR’s Land Management Bureau revealed that the firm failed to pay in full the purchase price for the lots covered by its land titles. - Jerry Botial and Katherine Andraneda