• ANDREW ALTAREJOS
Hundreds of agrarian reform beneficiaries from the Cojuangco haciendas in Negros Occidental staged a rally in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) offices – North Negros Occidental and Region VI, along Circumferential Road in Barangay Montevista, Bacolod City on May 26.
The landless farmers called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the DAR to end land monopoly in the CARP-covered Cojuangco haciendas in Negros Occidental. They appealed to the Marcos administration to address their decades-long struggle by finally installing them on the lands meant for distribution.
According to Task Force Mapalad, the land issue has been ignored by the past five administrations. Nearly 30 years have passed since the 11 Negros Occidental haciendas of the late politician-businessman and Marcos crony Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. were acquired under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and supposedly distributed to farmer-beneficiaries.
However, the 4,654-hectare landholding in La Carlota City and the towns of Hinigaran, Isabela, La Castellana, Pontevedra, and San Enrique remains undistributed. The haciendas were placed under a cooperative, which Cojuangco used to retain control through a 20-year joint venture agreement (JVA) with the farmer-beneficiaries. This arrangement only perpetuated their poverty, leaving them without true ownership, the group said.
With the JVA expiring on December 16, 2024, there is no legal barrier preventing the DAR from distributing the Cojuangco haciendas individually to the farmers and installing them on their lands. The DAR has even secured a World Bank loan to facilitate the parcelization of collective land titles, ensuring direct distribution to beneficiaries as mandated by the CARP Law.
Yet, under the second Marcos administration, DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III has failed to dismantle the land monopoly in the Cojuangco haciendas. Despite the clear mandate, the agency has not begun parceling out the landholdings, leaving farmers without individual Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs) and denying them the right to cultivate their own lands.
The group adds that at least 90 farmer-beneficiaries of the Cojuangco haciendas have died waiting for justice. Many others are elderly, sick, or destitute, their pleas for land falling on deaf ears at the DAR. To make matters worse, the cooperative, which collaborated with Cojuangco and the Hinojales family (the land’s lessors), is now seeking to disqualify 1,261 of the 1,756 CARP beneficiaries, further delaying resolution.
The farmers demanded action, urging the government to uphold agrarian reform and end their decades of suffering.*
