DAR finally installs farmers at Benedictos’ Negros estate

BACOLOD CITY — After six failed negotiations with the estate’s management, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) finally installed 182 farmer-beneficiaries yesterday morning at the 562-hectare Hacienda Esperanza owned by the heirs of the late Ambassador Roberto Benedicto in La Carlota City, 45.9 kilometers south of this city.

However, only 74 farmers affiliated with the Nagasi Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-purpose Cooperative were present during the peaceful installation led by Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza.

The Nagasi cooperative was awarded 176 hectares, while the rest of the landholding was given to the Workers Amalgamated Unions of the Philippines (WAUP).

Primitivo Caraballo, WAUP president, said they failed to attend the installation because the police and the military had cordoned off the area.

He appealed for justice from President Arroyo, claiming that 57 of their members were not included in the list of beneficiaries.

Braganza decided yesterday to force their way into Hacienda Esperanza whose entrance had been blocked by farmworkers allied with Malibu Agro Corp., which manages the estate, for two days.

He renegotiated with the Malibu officials early yesterday morning but failed to get their nod, prompting him to request Superintendent Vicente Ponteras, provincial police director, to implement the installation order.

Ponteras called on the pro-Malibu farmworkers, who had formed a human barricade, to lay down their pipes and stones, or else they would be arrested.

The farmworkers relented, allowing the peaceful installation of the beneficiaries.

Braganza said the negotiations earlier failed because there were people, whose economic interests would be affected by the farmers’ installation, intervened.

Braganza received a call from President Arroyo yesterday, inquiring into the progress of the installation which she ordered after meeting with the farmer-beneficiaries’ representatives at Malacañang last Wednesday.