MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) has reversed itself in a P1.4-billion land reform case involving 1,453 hectares of banana plantations owned by two corporations in Tagum, Davao del Norte.
According to a brief on the case sent to several congressmen, the government, through the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Land Bank of the Philippines, valued the property at P411.6 million when it was covered by agrarian reform in 1996.
However, the landowners – Apo Fruits Corp. and Hijo Plantation Inc. – appealed the valuation with the Special Agrarian Court in Tagum.
The special court adjusted the value to P1.383 billion. Additionally, it awarded the landowners 12 percent interest per year and 10 percent in lawyers’ fees based on the adjusted value.
The case eventually reached the SC, whose Third Division affirmed the new valuation and the award of interest and lawyers’ fees. However, the Landbank, which is mandated by law to advance payments to landowners, appealed the decision.
The Third Division, in a ruling made in December 2007, upheld the adjusted value of the property but struck down the additional awards to the landowners.
It later turned down the two corporations’ first motion for reconsideration and did not act on the second.
In May 2008, the Third Division’s decision became final and an entry of judgment was made. The Landbank promptly complied with the ruling and paid the corporations an additional P971.4 million.
After the ruling became final, the landowner’s second motion for reconsideration was elevated to the full SC.
In December 2009, the tribunal denied the second motion for reconsideration, ruling that the Landbank should not be made to pay interest as it promptly paid the balance of the adjusted valuation.
However, the landowners filed a third motion for reconsideration, which the full SC entertained.
Last Oct. 12, voting 9-3 and in a ruling penned by Justice Arturo Brion, the tribunal reversed its December 2009 decision and awarded the landowners P1.33 billion in interest based on the adjusted value of P1.393 billion. No attorney’s fees were granted.
The interest was computed at 12 percent a year from 1996, when the property was covered by land reform, until 2008, when the Landbank paid the additional P971.4 million.
Concerned DAR and Landbank officials sent the brief on the case to certain House members apparently to call attention to the SC decision to entertain the landowners’ third motion for reconsideration after the Third Division’s ruling became final and its award of interest income, and to their implications.
Reached for comment, Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, one of the principal authors of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, said he could not say if it was unusual for the SC to award interest in land reform cases.
“But I find the P1.33-billion award too big, if the landowners were entitled to interest. That is almost equivalent to the value of the property,” he said.
Lagman said it is the farmers to whom the property would be distributed who would in the end bear the burden for the doubling of the cost of the lands they till.
“The Landbank will just advance the payment. It will have to recoup that from the farmer-beneficiaries and future landowners, who will subsequently have to pay for those lands in installments,” he added.
As for the SC entertaining a motion for reconsideration even after a decision has become final, Lagman said it happens in certain cases.
Other congressmen likened the Tagum land reform dispute to the cityhood of 16 towns, an issue in which the Supreme Court also flip-flopped.