Sumilao farmers hit Quisumbing petition

A simple dirty, dilatory tactic.

This was how Sumilao farmers dismissed the petition filed by the Norberto Qui­sumbing SR Management and Development Corp. before the Supreme Court, even as they expressed suspicions over the “abrupt” interest of the Qui­sumbing family in the case involving the controversial 144-hectare property in Bukidnon.

Lawyer Arlene Bag-ao, legal counsel of the farmers, said it was strange that after “years of silence” the Quisumbing family suddenly entered the scene “at the very last moment.”

The NQSRMDC last week filed a petition, asking the SC for a restraining order against the Dec. 18-order of President Arroyo that revoked the conversion order issued to the property by former Executive Secretary Ruben Torres.

Mrs. Arroyo’s order, in effect, reverted the classification of the land from agro-industrial to agricultural and should pave the way for the distribution of the 144-hectare land to the farmers.

The NQCRMDC is the former landowner of the contested estate, which is now being developed by the San Miguel Foods Inc. (SMFI), a subsidiary of food and beverage giant San Miguel Corp. (SMC).

“We have filed the petition to revoke the conversion order as early as 2004 when the five-year period for the completion of the compliance of the conversion order expired. We heard nothing from Quisum­bing for three long years. He did not intervene in our case in the DAR and neither did he intervene when the petition was filed in the Office of the President,” Bag-ao said.

“Then, all of a sudden he questions the Dec. 18 (Office of the President) order. This is clearly an attempt to delay the distribution of the land and he (Quisumbing) does not even have a legal standing in the case pending in the Office of the President,” she also said.

Bag-ao, however, noted that the case in the Office of the President is not yet over because the petition of the Sumilao farmers for the issuance of a cease-and-desist order has not yet been resolved.