DAR to Palace: Junk Benedicto heirs’ appeal

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) asked Malacañang yesterday to dismiss for technicality an appeal by the heirs of the late Ambassador Roberto Benedicto to reconsider a June 9, 2000 order of Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Morales Jr. allowing the farmer-beneficiaries to maintain physical possession of their landholding in Negros Oriental.

The DAR made the request after it found that the heirs have filed the appeal prematurely, there being no judgment or final order rendered yet on their protest over what they called unlawful entry of farmer-beneficiaries into the sugarcane plantation in Barangay Nagasi, La Carlota town.

"It is elementary that an appeal may be taken only from a judgment or final order. An interlocutory or incidental judgment or order cannot be the subject of an appeal until judgment or final order is rendered," the DAR said in its 16-page reply-memorandum submitted to the Office of the President.

Morales, Assistant Secretary for Legal Affairs Wilfredo Peñaflor and legal consultant Heidi Cruz signed the memorandum.

The DAR asked that the Benedicto-owned Malibu Agro Corp. be directed to immediately remove the barricades it installed on the road leading to the 231.029-hectare plantation and allow the continued harvesting and hauling of sugarcane crops by the aggrieved members of the Nagasi Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multipurpose Cooperative Inc.

Morales also wanted Malibu Agro Corp. to cease and desist from harvesting the sugarcane crops in the disputed area and to order its armed security men to stop harassing or intimidating the Nagasi farmer-beneficiaries, who were installed in the property on Oct. 25, 1999.

Records showed that on Dec. 3, 1999, 98 days after the beneficiaries were installed, Othelo Clement, Western Visayas agrarian reform director, issued a memorandum advising the beneficiaries "to desist from further taking physical possession of the subject landholding."

Morales reversed this and directed Clement "to maintain the physical possession of the farmer-beneficiaries within the subject landholding."

The Benedictos appealed Morales’ order with the Office of the President, which responded by issuing an order on Dec. 22, 2000 staying the execution of the appealed order.

Relying on this presidential order, the Benedictos installed a barricade around the property and prevented the Nagasi farmers from entering the premises and from continuing with the harvest of the mature sugarcane they had planted on the land.