Hacienda Looc
(This paper discusses the impact of a large-scale tourism
project by Fil-Estate Properties, lnc. and Manila Southcoast Development
Corp. on the people of Hacienda Looc, Nasugbu, Batangas; how the
government-owned land was transferred to private hands despite
the fact that land reform was already being undertaken in the
area; the project's impact on the environment; human rights abuses
committed against the people, and other pertinent issues that
has made Hacienda Looc a test case for the peasantry's struggle
to resist landgrabbing and fight for genuine land reform.)
Introduction
Big business call it land-banking. For
peasants, it is land-grabbing.
Windfall profit from sheer land speculation has
pushed foreign and local big business to accumulate lands especially
in rural areas where the government plans to undertake so-called
"urbanization" projects under its Philippines 2000 program.
This phenomenon which started in the late 80's has contributed
to the rapid concentration of lands in the hands of big business
and has since aggravated the problem of peasant landlessness in
the country.
Peasants are duped to give up their lands, otherwise
they are forcibly ejected. In many cases, whole peasant communities
are affected and displaced to give way for the construction of
residential subdivisions, commercial or industrial estates and
tourism complexes.
Lands covered by land reform are not spared,
underscoring the bankruptcy of the government's Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Because of enormous petitions
from landowners to have their lands exempt from CARP, the Department
of Agrarian Reform has been more preoccupied with hearing petitions
for exemption and land use conversion. It has been cancelling
Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) it previously gave
to CARP farmer-beneficiaries at a much faster rate than it can
distribute lands to farmers.
Land deals especially those involving the sale
or lease of public lands to private corporations are most often
consummated through bureaucratic graft or simply using political
connections and clout. Whenever there is resistance from affected
peasant communities, brute force is used as in deploying military
or police troops and private goons to harass and intimidate the
local populace.
The construction of the country's biggest ever
tourism complex in Hacienda Looc, Nasugbu, Batangas by real estate
giant Fil-Estate Properties, Inc. and Manila Southcoast Development
Corp. (MSDC) is a classic example that illustrates the gamut of
problems mentioned above.
Ten thousand (10,000) peasant families are about
to be displaced from their land, their rights as land reform beneficiaries
forfeited as Fil-Estate's Harbortown transforms their nature-endowed
coastal villages into an exclusive playground for the rich. When
completed, Harbortown will include 4 golf courses, a 5-star hotel,
beach resorts, a marina for yacht anchorage and neighborhoods
of luxurious vacation homes.
Tension has begun to grip this once placid farming
and fishing community. Fil-Estate's security guards have already
killed two (2) members of the local peasant organization. Of late,
military troops came in the area in the guise of conducting a
training but which is believed by the local population as another
attempt by Fil-Estate to sow terror and fear among them.
How the ownership of the entire estate was transferred
from government to private hands also reveals questionable transactions
between the Asset Privatization Trust (APT) and MSDC. Why Fil-Estate
can be so reassuringly optimistic about pursuing the project despite
massive resistance from the people also lays bare what kind of
political connections it has with Malacanang and high-ranking
government bureacrats.
The people of Hacienda Looc are resolute in their
struggle to stop the project and retain their lands. Support and
sympathy from various sectors is very much solicited to help them
confront and overcome such big corporate giants as Fil-Estate
and MSDC. Certain government officials or agencies who have connived
or are conniving with Fil-Estate and MSDC have to be exposed and
prosecuted. But most importantly, the government must be made
to answer for its culpability not in Hacienda Looc alone but in
all other places nationwide where the people are made to suffer
in order to protect the interests of big business. It must be
taken to task for pushing the kind of development that serves
only a few at the expense of the people and more vital social
measures as land reform.
Hacienda Looc
Hacienda Looc is an estate that stretches over
the seaside villages of Calayo, Papaya, Look and Bulihan in the
coastal town of Nasugbu, Batangas. It has a total land area of
8,650.78 hectares. With such expanse, its topography is a mixed
pattern of plains, valleys and mountainous areas principally devoted
to agriculture.
Its plains cover more than 1,700 hectares planted
to rice, corn, vegetables and sugarcane. The sizeable portion
of the mountainous areas are productive of fruit trees such as
mango, banana, jackfruit and star apple, wild rice and rootcrops
such as cassava and camote.
The estate is bounded by extensive shorelines
that link the four villages to the rich fishing grounds in the
China Sea. The shores in sitio Cutad, Hamilo and Looc form three
large coves that are rich in aquamarine resources. These attributes
make up a combination which enabled the 10,000 local population
of Hacienda Looc to exist in relative self-sufficiency for decades.
Majority of them have settled in the area for four generations.
Aside from its present productivity, Hacienda
Looc is full of potentials for development that could upgrade
the living conditions of its farming and fishing population. Its
beaches and coves can be developed for local tourism and aquaculture
projects. Its swamps and mangroves are ideal for bangus and
prawn-raising. Its two rivers and streams can be tapped for harnessing
energy and communal irrigation systems while the mountain slopes
can be developed for sustainable agro-forest production.
Hacienda Looc has attracted the interest of real
estate speculators and developers because of its key role in the
government's CALABARZON development scheme (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas,
Rizal, and Quezon- the southern provinces of the island of Luzon)
and also because of its proximity to Metro-Manila and the so-called
six "urban growth corridors" of Laguna Lakeshore, Batangas
Urban, Cavite Island, Cavite Coastal, Alaminos-San Pablo and Marikina-Infanta.
It is also strategically located within the CALABARZON-designated
international tourism circuit namely: Ternate-Nasugbu Coastal
Tourism Zone., Mabini Coastal Tourism Zone and Taal Lake Tourism
Zone.
History of Land Ownership
In early times, the land was part of a huge plantation
owned by the Roxas and then the Dolor families. The hacienda was
used by the Dolor family to pay its loans with the Philippine
National Bank and the Development Bank of the Philippines through
"dacion en pago" (cession in payment). In 1973,
ownership of the hacienda was transferred and consolidated with
the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP). During the early
part of martial law, the rice and corn portions totalling 1,282
hectares were put under former dictator Marcos' land reform program,
with 831 farmers qualifying as beneficiaries.
On February 27, ~987, DBP turned over the entire
estate to the Assets Privatization Trust (APT), a government agency
tasked with disposing government assets for sale or lease to private
corporations and individuals. Also in 1987, the government of
Corazon Aquino issued Executive Order 227 putting all alienable
and disposable public lands suitable to agriculture under the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Thus, on June 28, 1990, the APT came to an agreement
with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to identify and distribute
the lands of the hacienda to farmer-beneficiaries in accordance
with the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). In pursuance
of this agreement, the DAR issued in 1991 some 24 collective CLOAs
and one individual CLOA to 1,301 farmers. These combined CLOAs
cover 3,981 hectares. This brings the number of hectares placed
under land reform in Hacienda Looc to a total of 5,218 including
a one-hectare plot donated by APT to the municipal government
of Nasugbu.
However, even as land reform was already being
undertaken, an interagency government task force led by the APT
was at the same time working with the USAID in conducting a feasibility
study for a land use plan in Hacienda Looc. In June 1991, the
feasibility study commissioned to Joaquin Cunanan and Co. came
up with a land use scheme proposing the transformation of the
hacienda into an agro-tourism complex.
On December 8, 1993, the APT held a public bidding
for the sale of the remaining portions of the hacienda not covered
by CARP. It was also during this time that real estate speculators
swarmed over Hacienda Looc, offering farmers to buy their lands
including those already covered by CLOAs and Emancipation Patents
(EPs).
By tendering the purchase price of P 215 million,
Bellevue Properties Inc. (BPI) (reportedly owned by the family
of retail magnate Henry Sy) was declared by the APT as the winning
bidder. As initial payment, the Bank of the Philippine Islands
(BPI) gave the government P6 million pesos. On the same date,
BPI and Guoco Land (the same firm which owns Amari Coastal Bay
Development Corp. which was involved in the controversial land
scam with the Public Estates Authority) created the Manila Southcoast
Development Corporation (MSDC), controlling 67% of its interests.
On August 26, 1994, BPI executed a Deed of Assignment
in favor of MSDC. The assignment effected the transfer of BPI's
rights as vendee of Hacienda Looc to MSDC. On August 30, 1994,
MSDC paid APT the amount of P209 million representing the balance
of the purchase price and signed a Deed of Sale for this purpose.
On October 17, 1995, MSDC and Fil-Estate Properties,
Inc. signed a project agreement that forged their joint venture
to develop 1, 269 hectares within Hacienda Looc into a world-class
tourism and leisure complex, to be called "Harbortown Golf
and Country Club."
Fil-Estate's Harbortown Project
Harbortown is by far the largest tourism project
in the country being undertaken in a scale previously unheard
of in the tourism industry. According to Fil-Estate's plans, the
project will include four golf courses on wind-swept ridges, each
designed by a different celebrity golf champion; a 120-room luxury
hotel; exclusive neighborhood of vacation villas and a yacht marina
envisioned to be part of a circuit of yachting destinations that
includes Hongkong, Subic, Mindoro, and Boracay.
Fil-Estate has already come up with attractive
marketing brochures of Harbortown with glossy photographs of the
scenery and beaches which were retouched to remove all traces
of the bustling seaside villages. The exclusive resort and leisure
complex has only the filthy rich for its clientele who can afford,
for example, the P600,000 club membership share in the yacht marina,
the P3,500-P5,000 per square meter for the residential land or
the P500,000 -P600,000 for each golf club share.
The entire project covers about 1,269 has. of
land situated in the flatlands, ridges and coves of Hacienda Looc
that are also currently held by farmers under 13 collective CLOAs.
Despite opposition from farmers, Fil-Estate has started developing
the first phase of the project, bulldozing on 216 hectares of
the hacienda.
Fraudulent Land Deal
Like most government deals involving the sale
of public lands to private entities, fraud must have accompanied
the sale of Hacienda Looc to MSDC.
The Deed of Sale dated August 30, 1994 unequivocally
states that what was sold by APT to MSDC was TCT No. T-28719 which
covers the entire 8,650.7778 hectares. This is in circumvention
of the bidding terms which openly placed on the bidding block
only the remaining 3,248.24 hectares of the hacienda not covered
by land reform.
The bidding terms showed that all bids would
refer on "AS IS, WHERE IS" basis to the lands not placed
under agrarian reform. The notice of the bidding expressly stated
the following as part of the site data and legal description of
the property:
Description of the Property Area (in hectares)
a. lands donated to the Municipal Government
of Nasugbu 1.00
b. lands awarded to farmer-beneficiaries under
P.D. 27 1,282.98
c. lands awarded to farmer-beneficiaries under
B.O. 407 (227?) 3,934.26
_________________________________________________________________________
5,218.24
d. lands undischarged by land distribution 3,432.54
The Deed of Sale, however, provided a clause
which reserved "without limitation" to the vendee (MSDC)
the following rights:
xxxx.. to retain and to require the return of
the portions of the PROPERTY which are not covered by and not
subject to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, the right to
receive tile just compensation for the portion or portions of
the PROPERlY duly acquired by DAR and duly distributed to qualified
farmer- beneficiaries, the right to retain and to require the
return of any portion of the PROPERTY previously surveyed by DAR
for distribution to qualified farmer-beneficiaries but found not
suitable for agricultural purposes or exempt from the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Law by reason of slope thereof and the right to
contest and to recover any portion or portions of the PROPERTY
which may not have been duly aand properly acquired by DAR or
which may not have been duly and properly distributed to qualified
farmer-beneficiaries .xxxx (Deed of Sale, Clause No.3. Page 3)
[italics ours]
Thus, after being charged by the Asset Specific
Bidding Rules with the knowledge that it would be bidding (and
therefore paying) only for the remaining 3,432.54 hectares, MSDC,
not without a little help from the APT, tried to extend its luck
and the exchange value of its purchasing price through the above-quoted
clause which packed the following rights (reiterated here for
the sake of clarity and emphasis):
a. the rights of ownership over 3,248.24 hectare-portion
of Hacienda Looc
b. the rights to receive the just compensation
for the lands already distributed to farmer-beneficiaries;
c. the right to retain and to require the return
of the those lands found not suitable for agriculture;
d. the right to retain and require the return
of those lands which DAR had already surveyed but not yet distributed
to farmer-beneficiaries; and
e. the right to retain and recover those lands.which
may not have been duly and properly acquired by DAR or not duly
and properly distributed to farmer-beneficiaries.
The clause actually provides loopholes for MSDC
to circumvent the land reform law and extend its rights of ownership
beyond the 3,432 hectare-portion of the hacienda. This was what
MSDC exactly did later. Through the assistance of certain DAR
officials, it got what it wanted: cancellation of the farmers'
CLOAs and exemption from land reform.
Hence, MSDC has virtually acquired the whole
hacienda for only P215 million- although this amount was the same
price it offered for only the 3,432 hectare-portion of Hacienda
Looc. It is also worth considering that other realty firms are
buying lands in other parts of Hacienda Looc and nearby villages
at P70,000 to P100,000 per hectare, a far cry from the P25,000
per hectare acquisition price of MSDC for the contiguous 8,650
hectare-estate. If the USAID feasibility study is to be followed,
the entire estate should have been sold by the Government at a
much higher price of PI.2 billion.
The questionable sale of Hacienda Looc to MSDC
raises not only the issue of fraud or bureaucratic graft in government.
It also demonstrates what kind of political will the government
has for pursuing its own land reform program.
A Mockery of Land Reform
To complete the legal requirements for divesting
farmer-beneficiaries of their rights on the land, MSDC filed a
petition on March 7, 1995 with the DAR Adjudication Board seeking
the cancellation of 25 CLOAs in 3,294.26 hectares and the conversion
of the agricultural lands these CLOAs covered.
MSDC and Fil-Estate simply got what they wanted.
By invoking DOJ Opinion 44 that exempts from land reform all lands
classified for non-agricultural uses before the enactment of CARL,
Regional Adjudicator Fe Arche-Nlanalang issued a partial judgement
on January 8, 1996 cancelling 10 out of the 25 CLOAs. It ruled
that Hacienda Looc was earlier on classified as part of the tourism
zone declared by Marcos.
The 10 cancelled CLOAs, covering 1,219 has. and
affecting 413 farmer-beneficiaries, almost represents the entire
area of 1,269 hectares. identified as project site by the Fil-Estate-MSDC
joint venture. To complete the delivery of the additional 50 hectares
to Fil-Estate and MSDC, DAR Region IV Director Remegio Tabones
approved in December 26, 1996 MSDC's petition for exemption and
land use conversion of the entire 1,269 hectare-project site.
The regional adjudicator also relied on a volume
of affidavits supposedly executed by 312 farmers stating that
subject lands are unsuitable to agriculture and thus not covered
by CARP. However, said affidavits were so characteristically uniform
in language, form and substance that they could only have been
mass produced by a single brain. In fact, ten (10) of those who
executed the affidavits were already dead.
At present, the DAR Adjudication Board (DARAB)
proceedings of the remainder of the case have been suspended and
Regional Director Tabones' decision is now under review by the
DAR national office. DAR Secretary Ernesto Garilao was forced
to take up the case partly because of stiff resistance from the
people and also because the case has already attracted the attention
of media (three leading dailies ran a two-part series article
on the issue bylined by Howie Severino of the Phil. Center for
Investigative Journalism). But it must also be due to the fact
that it is Fil-Estate who's involved in the controversy and it
was no less than Presidential Legal Adviser Rene Cayetano who
has been following up the case with the DAR.
The DAR is currently reinvestigating the case,
conducting fact-finding missions and an ocular survey of the area.
In its fact-finding report dated December 18, 1996, DAR Undersecretary
Hector Soliman could not ignore the following facts and attested:
a. that the buying of lands has been continuing
in the area and involves government officials (e.g. Barangay Capt.
Limeta, Nasugbu Mayor Rosano Apacible, DAR employees and Bulihan
BARC Chairman Luis Javier);
b. that farmers were forced to sell their lands
because of dire necessity;
c. that they did not know of the nature of the
transaction which they individually entered into with Fil-Estate
agents and they were made to sign blank documents;
d. that ten of those who executed adverse affidavits
were already dead;
e. that former DAR-IV Regional Director Percival
Dalugdog and Atty. Victor Baguilat were not able to amply defend
the interest of agrarian reform beneficiaries in the adjudication
proceedings;
f. that the titles of 10 cancelled CLOAs were
transferred to MSDC in February 1996 even when some farmer-beneficiaries
reasonably interposed a motion for reconsideration of the first
partial judgement; and
g that the ongoing conversion in the 216 portion
of Hacienda Looc (the so-called first phase) is a circumvention
of conversion regulations because
1) the pending motion for reconsideration remains
unresolved and renders the decision as not yet final as to be
executory and,
2) MSDC's application for conversion is still
pending litigation.
In the same report, DAR Undersecretary Soliman
tried to assure the farmers that 1,282 hectares of land covered
by EPs under Marcos's land reform would not be affected by exemption
or conversion since they were not made subject of any litigation.
He assured further that only some 2,829 hectares are potential
for exemption for being over 18 degrees slope and agriculturally-undeveloped
However, in March 1997, Secretary Garilao gave
a glimpse of the kind of decision it is coming up with on Hacienda
Looc. In his weekly press conference, he said that Hacienda Looc
may not be CARPabIe arguing that the area is not really
agricultural. Without benefit of concluding its own investigation
of the land dispute in Hacienda Looc, he said that there is no
guarantee the farmers will win the case.
Environmental Menace
Since Fil-Estate's earthmoving activities on
the 216-hectare portion of the hacienda (Phase I of the project)
started in December 1995, the people have complained of erosion
and siltation. This has caused damage to their crops planted in
the lowlands. Fish catch has since then been also diminishing.
As if to show what force it is to reckon with,
Fil-Estate started developing Phase I in October 1995 without
the prerequisite Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) from
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). It
was forced to get an ECC only in April 1996 following complaints
aired by the people. In October 1996, Fil-Estate was fined for
five violations of its ECC for its failure to replant trees and
build protective measures against heavy erosion.
It is not only in Nasugbu that Fil-Estate has
become very controversial when it comes to the enormity of its
projects and their corresponding impact on the environment. In
Boracay Island (a tourist island resort in the Visayas), its Fairways
and Bluewater project will also take up half of the island for
its golf courses. Since the island has no sufficient potable water
supply, Fil-Estate plans to pipe in water from mainland Aklan
province. In Baguio City, a place where water is rationed, Fil-Estate
is embarking on building the biggest golf course which may have
to use up all of Baguio's water supply for its maintenance.
Golf courses are seen as an environmental menace,
wasting too much water and land for a sports only the rich can
afford. According to environmental activists, an average 18-hole
golf course occupies about 85 hectares of land and consumes 6,500
cubic meters of water daily. When translated in terms of how much
water is wasted and land that was taken out from food production,
the golf lawn is equivalent to approximately 40 peasant farmlots
producing 500,000 kilos of rice a year and its water consumption
enough to irrigate 65 hectares of farmlands or supply the daily
water needs of 1 5,000 Metro Manila residents. In a country whose
local food production is not enough to feed its population, converting
farms into golf courses equally raises serious concerns on the
issue of food security.
Large tracts of land, mostly farmlands and forests,
are being cleared to make way for the construction of golf courses,
often resulting in soil erosion, downstream flooding and landslides.
To keep the lawns green and velvety, 9 tons of pesticides and
insecticides are sprayed yearly which eventually get washed down
into the water table, irrigation systems, rivers and sea. Not
only do these pollute the waterways but 90% of the chemicals sprayed
on the course end up in the air posing health problems on golfers
themselves, caddies and local residents.
Human Rights Abuses
Fil-Estate and MSDC are not only guilty of abusing
the environment, they are also culpable for committing human rights
abuses against the people of Hacienda Looc.
In the evening of February 13, 1996, tw0 farmers,
Francisco Marasigan and Maximo Carpinter, both members of UMALPAS
KA-Hacienda Looc (or Ugnayan ng Mamamayan Laban sa Pangwawasak
ng Kalupaan sa Hacienda Looc), the local peasant organization
in Hacienda Looc, were shot to death without provocation by security
guards of Fil-Estate and MSDC. The perpetrators were arrested
two weeks after the murder but were later released by the Nasugbu
police.
Fil-Estate and MSDC employ a total of 134 private
security guards for its project in Hacienda Looc. They are deployed
as combat units and stationed in detachments spread all over the
two villages of Calayo and Papaya. If their job was only to secure
bulldozers and other equipment, Fil-Estate would not need such
a big "private army." Their mode of operations as combat
units scattered in the villages reveal that it is the people whom
Fil-Estate wanted to be watched over and silenced.
Last May 1997, about 60 elements of the Philippine
National Police-Regional Special Action Forces (PNP-RSAF) came
to Hacienda Looc in the guise of holding a military training.
The people were alarmed of this unusual military presence in their
area because never in the history of Hacienda Looc was it used
for military training. This is in addition to one (1) platoon
of the Armed Forces of the Philippines army Engineering Infantry
Battalion that is already in the hacienda. Like in most cases
where military troops are used to pacify people's opposition to
certain development projects by government and big business, the
deployment of the RSAF in Hacienda Looc signals an escalation
of tension in the area.
Not only security guards, military and police
forces are used by Fil-Estate and MSDC in their campaign to cow
the people into submission. Certain local government officials
who have their own economic stakes in Fil-Estate's project are
likewise mobilized to intimidate officers and members of UMALPAS
KA. Barangay Calayo Chairman Maximo Limeta, who was able to purchase
10 dump trucks by servicing Fil-Estate's development works in
Phase I is said to be the local hatchet man of Fil-Estate. He
has 17 fully-armed goons who have been responsible for tipping
off organizers and NGO volunteers to the military and police,
spreading threats that death already awaits certain persons involved
in UMALPAS KA including its legal counsel Atty. Romy Capulong.
Political Connections
Many believe that Fil-Estate's fast rise to prominence
as one of the country's leading developer would not be possible
without its strong political connections with Malacanang. This
explains why it can be so aggressive in pursuing controversial
projects and get away with violating environmental rules or skirting
the land reform law.
Fil-Estate Chairman Robert John L. Sobrepena
has supported President Ramos' bid for presidency in 1992. Last
year, Ramos appointed Sobrepena's older brother, Russell, as undersecretary
of tourism. He is now in charge of planning and as such is involved
in tourism development in Boracay, Baguio and other areas where
Fil-Estate happens to have stakes also. The Sobrepenas are Ilokanos
who are said to have historical famity ties and political kinship
with the Ramoses.
President Ramos himself was part of the controversial
joint venture with FII-Estate to develop Mt. Makiling as a residential
subdivision for the rich called Springdale Gardens. He reportedly
has a property in this controversial project which was later found
to be lacking in the required ECC.
Fil-Estate also employs as its top brass executives
certain influential people who can easily pull strings in high
places of government. Francisco "Jun" Villa III, son
of Ombudsman Francisco Villa, is Fil-Estate's business development
manager. It can be recalled that the Ombudsman dismissed a case
earlier filed by certain CARP beneficiaries against MSDC and the
APT for defrauding the government in the sale of Hacienda Looc.
Engineer Macky Maceda, son of Senate President
Ernie Maceda, is being paid by Fil-Estate as environmental consultant.
Roberto Roco, a close relative of Senator Raul Roco, heads the
realty firm's finance department. Senator Roco, on the other hand,
is a major stockholder of Sheraton Hotels, the same hotel chain
with whom Fil-Estate has forged joint ventures to build 5-star
hotels in most of its tourism projects.
MSDC, on the other hand, is jointly owned by
the family of Henry Sy and Guoco Land by a Singaporean national
named Mr. Micky Yong Mee Swee. Henry Sy is known to be the big
boss in the mall and retail business who has now also ventured
into landbanking. Guoco Land owns and controls the Amari Coastal
Bay Development Corporation, the leading realty firm who recently
figured in a bigtime land scam with the Public Estates Authority
(PEA) involving the sale of the reclaimed government land along
Roxas Blvd. One must have not only the guts but real strong political
backup to be able to pull such a big deal. PEA Administrator Lagdameo
has resigned following media expose' of the scam but police investigation
has yet to be concluded to determine the extent of Amari's culpability.
It is public knowledge though in Nasugbu, Batangas
that General Eduardo Ermita, who is congressman for the fourth
district of Batangas and a close friend of President Ramos, owns
a large share of MSDC.
Pacification Tactics
There are no indications that Fil-Estate and
MSDC may be willing to settle for a compromise in Hacienda Looc
because they are standing pat on their claim on the land and are
hell-bent to have land reform cancelled in the area. To stifle
the people's increasing resistance to their project, they are
however concocting schemes to pacify the people and mislead them
into submission. This campaign of deception is being done side
by side with their campaign of terror and militarization.
To make an impression that they are concerned
with the welfare of the people, Fil-Estate and MSDC are "giving"
the people titles for homelots in the same place these people
have known to be their home long before these two realty giants
came into the picture. A census is currently being undertaken
by Fil-Estate among residents of the Hacienda supposedly to determine
who may be entitled to these homelots.
To counter the presence of NGOs in the area who
have been assisting the people in their struggle, Fil-Estate is
creating its own NGO also whose role is to purportedly implement
livelihood projects for the people.
While it is supposedly undertaking socio-civic
activities for welfare of the people, Fil-Estate is at the same
time buying off leaders of UMALPAS KA The chairman of this local
organization, for instance, was offered two million pesos for
a hectare of his land, in exchange for his acquiescence to the
project.
These tactics are not new. They were always used
in history against peasant resistance. Even government land reform
programs were also intended for this purpose, tailor-made to be
bogus and pro-landlord.
By all indications, the most probable move that
the DAR will take on Hacienda Looc is to exempt it from CARP,
a fast and sure way to do it. In any case that this may not be
politically viable given the people's stiff resistance to the
project and exposure of the issue in the press, DAR still has
other options such as forging a joint venture agreement between
farmer-beneficiaries and MSDC-Fil-Estate where the latter retains
control of the land.
For several years now since CARP was enacted
in 1988, the DAR has exhibited maximum flexibility in enforcing
the law as to give CLOAs now only to take them back later. Or,
to allow big corporations and former landowners to regain control
of their lands by effecting so-called joint venture agreements
between big corporations and farmer-beneficiaries. Other schemes
such as leaseback, profit and production-sharing and stock sharing
have the same effect of giving landlords and corporations the
right to regain control of their land, ridiculously in the context
of implementing land reform.
In areas where there are stiff landlord resistance
to CARP, for example in the sugarlands of Negros Island in the
Visayas, the DAR has been offering these schemes in order to convince
landlords that they still can wield control over their estates
and at the same time comply with the land reform law. It will
just be a matter of distributing CLOAs to farmer-beneficiaries
who will in turn surrender their rights on the land to a corporation
or landlord with whom it is forging a so-called joint venture
or leaseback agreement. In the joint venture, the landlord or
corporation exercises all rights and powers as manager/administrator
of the land and of course of the business enterprise that was
put up on the land. The farmer-beneficiaries, on the other hand,
will become mere workers in the enterprise and simply earn dividends
on their shares on the land, which in most cases comprise only
a third of the enterprise's capital stock.
It is important to note at this point that as
early as November 1994, FilEstate and Carmona Realty entered into
joint venture agreements with certain CLOA holders in Hacienda
Looc to develop their lands into an agro-tourism area. It was
the best way to acquire the lands without supposedly violating
the land reform law.
Later, it forged an alliance with MSDC which
triumphantly acquired the hacienda from government including the
prerogative to have the lands exempt from land reform. Thus the
two has since worked together for the total exemption of the hacienda
from CARP. However, given the people's increasing resistance to
the Harbortown project and after the issue has been exposed in
the media, it is not farfetched to predict that Fil-Estate and
MSDC, as a last recourse, would be offering farmer-beneficiaries
joint venture schemes. In that case, they can pursue their Harbortown
project in Hacienda Looc, this time with slight modifications
as to integrate a "model farming or fishing community"
in their whole development design.
Conclusion
Recent news about a property glut in the country
may be an indication that the real estate bubble may already be
bursting. Property owners and developers are downplaying the issue
admitting though that the glut is only true for golf courses and
high rise buildings. Government economic planners are likewise
wary because the real estate sector was a major contributor to
the country's much ballyhooed GNP growth in the past few years.
No matter the extent of this current crisis in the real estate
sector, this development only proves how superficial and volatile
the country's so-called economic growth is. Not to mention the
fact that the GNP posted positive growth rate only on account
of overseas contract workers (OCWs) remittances, speculative foreign
capital, and public debts while the manufacturing sector continues
to decline.
The people of Hacienda Looc may have a reason
to rejoice over this current development. But there is still no
guarantee that their land would be spared from whatever Fil-Estate
and MSDC plan to do with Harbortown. With millions of pesos at
stake, these realty giants cannot simply abandon Hacienda Looc.
In fact, Fil-Estate continues to employ its carrot and stick tactics
against the people through harassment on one hand and cooptation
on the other.
Hacienda Looc is a test case for thousands of
peasants all over the country who are facing the same threat of
dislocation and landlessness. The victory of the people in Hacienda
Looc is a victory for the cause of the peasantry. And this is
not impossible to achieve as long as the people remains united
and undaunted and enjoys broad support from various sectors and
organizations.