SC orders Pangandaman to answer contempt raps

BACOLOD CITY – The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman, together with eight other respondents, to show cause why he should not be held for contempt for insisting on the installation of 53 farmers at the disputed Hacienda Velez-Malaga in La Castellana, Negros Occidental despite pending legal issues.

Also named in the SC en banc resolution dated last June 5 were DAR Undersecretaries Narciso Nieto and Jeffrey Galan, regional director Alexis Arsenal, former provincial director Stephen Leonidas, deputy regional police director Reynaldo Rafal, 11th Infantry Brigade commander Jesus Manangquil, Regional Mobile Group commander Pedro Merced, and La Castellana police chief Regidor Alvarado.

The SC resolution disproved Pangandaman’s claim that there were no legal impediments in installing the 50 Task Force Mapalad (TFM) members at a 50-hectare portion of the sugar estate last March 22 despite the warning of Mario Diaz, legal counsel for landowner Roberto Cuenca.

Diaz insisted that a case was still pending before the SC and that the writ of preliminary injunction issued by Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Reynaldo Alon was still in effect.

The SC still has to resolve the motion for intervention filed by Jerry Cahilig, Rodolfo Paclibar and other TFM members who questioned the decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) junking the petition of the Department of Agrarian Reform.

The DAR lost its case against Cuenca at the lower court, which cancelled the certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) to 122 farmer-beneficiaries and the compensation notice from the Land Bank of the Philippines. The DAR appealed the decision to the CA, which, in turn, upheld the RTC order.

Diaz said Pangandaman gave undue advantage to the TFM. 

With the SC resolution, members of the Hacienda Velez-Malaga Independent Workers’ Union are planning to file separate criminal and administrative cases against the same respondents before the Office of the Ombudsman, Diaz said.

Meanwhile, the Negros Occidental police is considering a hands-off policy on any request either from the DAR or any farmers’ group in installing farmers in disputed areas.

Senior Superintendent Rosendo Franco said the DAR had given assurance that there were no legal impediments in installing the TFM members at Hacienda Velez-Malaga but the policemen who were only performing their duties were themselves charged.