Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza stressed this, as he warned landowners who continue to resist the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
"We just cannot allow anybody to stall the implementation of CARP. At the end of the day, law and order should prevail," Braganza said in a statement yesterday.
"I am here to enforce the law and enforce it I will," he added.
Over the weekend, Braganza, backed by the police and the military, peacefully installed 182 farmer-beneficiaries at Hacienda Esperanza, owned by the heirs of the late Ambassador Roberto Benedicto, in La Carlota City, Negros Occidental.
Braganza said he would not succumb to "any pressure" in implementing CARP, adding "there are no sacred cows."
He admitted that his department’s biggest headache is installing farmer-beneficiaries in landholdings whose owners remain defiant and employ various tricks to prevent the government from distributing their properties to qualified farmer-beneficiaries.
Braganza described the installation of farmer-beneficiaries at the Benedicto property as a "major breakthrough" in his department’s campaign to fast-track the distribution of big landholdings.
Farmworkers allied with Malibu Agro Corp., which manages the 562-hectare Benedicto hacienda, had blocked the estate since last Friday. But they dismantled their barricades last Sunday when police threatened to arrest them.
The Court of Appeals earlier had denied Malibu’s petition seeking a reconsideration of the resolution installing the 182 farmer-beneficiaries at the estate.