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First Posted on Inside Mindanao: February 23, 2007

Farmers Lose Agrarian Reform Gains Via Leaseback Agreements
By Ellen Red

IMPASUG-ONG, BUKIDNON- Angelina Padla was a happy beneficiary of a 3-hectare land under the government's agrarian reform program in the year 1992.

Today, Ms. Padla has no land to till as she entered into a leaseback agreement with Del Monte Philippines, Inc.

"I was really happy when I entered the land that was awarded to me under the government's agrarian reform program," Ms. Padla told Inside Mindanao in her dialect.

In 1992, Cawayan-Impalutao Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association (CIARBA) was given by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) a Certificate of Land Ownership Award covering 140 hectares in barangay Cawayan, Impasug-ong town.

The 140-hectare property was sub-divided among the close to 60 CIARBA members, three hectares of which was awarded to Ms. Padla. CIARBA members are landless farmer-residents in Cawayan and former farm workers of Milmar Corporation. Before it was covered under the government's agrarian reform program, the 140 hectares used to be part of the coffee plantation belonging to Milmar Corporation.

"It took two years for us to follow up-employing whatever legal mean-before the land was awarded to us," Antioco Calimbo, the first chairman of CIARBA, told Inside Mindanao in his dialect.

In 2001, after close to 10 years of cultivating their own lands, CIARBA members collectively gave Del Monte the enjoyment of the use of their lands for a certain price for 25 years.

Ms. Padla said she was forced to enter into a leaseback contract with Del Monte because of the foreclosure notice from Landbank of the Philippines. She said that since 1992, she has not paid an amortization fee to Landbank.

Republic Act 6657, as amended, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1998, provides that private lands covered under the law shall not be taken from the private owners without paying just compensation. Thus, farmer-beneficiaries are required to pay amortization to the original owner through Landbank, a government's bank.

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