In 1996, 200 landless peasants were identified as beneficiaries for 393 hectares of land owned by former Senator Rene Espina. Not only has the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) failed to install these peasants onto the said landholding till today, in 2005, the Court of Appeals  decided against the coverage of the land under the national agrarian reform program. The Supreme Court is yet to decide whether or not to reverse the earlier decision by the Court of Appeals. Without access to land, the peasants' families are deprived of food, while some families were forced to migrate to cities in search for employment opportunities.   

Background

In 1996, the 500 hectares of sugar land owned by former Senator Rene Espina at Tanjay City, Negros Oriental province was covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).  About 200 farmer-beneficiaries were screened by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and qualified as farmers beneficiaries for 393 hectares out of the 500 hectares of land Espina owned.

Mr. Espina opposed the installation of the farmers and filed in 2003 a petition with the Court of Appeals, the country's second highest judicial court after the Supreme Court, to exclude his land from the national agrarian reform program. In May 2004, the provincial office of the DAR, with the assistance of police forces and some local government officials installed the beneficiaries onto the said landholding. The farmers' families were able to plant food crops and earn some money from selling them at the market. However, Mr. Espina started to harass and intimidate the farmers by ordering his armed men to shoot at the farmers. As a result, the farmers were forced to leave the land. Since then, the farmers attempted to enter the land twice - in October 2004 and January 2005 - but were forced to leave the land immediately after the occupation due to the harassment of the armed men of Senator Espina who were repeatedly firing their guns in the air and confiscating the harvests of the farmers.

In 2005, the Court of Appeals excluded the land in question from the national agrarian reform program in response to the petition submitted earlier by Rene Espina.  The Court of Appeals favoured the appeal of Espina who claimed that the land is no longer suited for agricultural purposes and had already been re-classified from agricultural use to industrial/commercial use through an ordinance of the local government of Tanjay City issued in 2004. In 2006, an appeal was filed by the farmers to the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals. However, no decision has been rendered up to this day by the Supreme Court. Deprived of their access to land, many have transferred residences and migrated due to lack of employment opportunities and means of livelihood in the area.

FIAN Mandate

The Philippine government is a state party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Therefore, it is duty-bound under international law to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food of all of its citizens. Not only has the government failed to install the farmers' beneficiaries onto the land in question, the Court of Appeals also reversed the earlier decision of the DAR contrary to provisions in the CARL, thereby evading the coverage of the land from the agrarian reform program. The Supreme Court has not yet decided on the appeal filed by the landless peasants until today.  International action is urgently needed to highlight the issue and obtain decisive action from the Supreme Court.

Call to Action

Please write a polite letter to Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno of the Supreme Court requesting the Supreme Court to issue a decision reversing the order of the Court of Appeals, which had exempted the Espina landholding from CARP coverage.