Nation

After decadeslong fight, 237 Tausug farmers get CLOAs

John Unson - Philstar.com

December 30, 2016 | 12:21pm

After decadeslong fight, 237 Tausug farmers get CLOAs

Officials grant an elderly Tausug woman in Siasi, Sulu a title to a land awarded through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

DAR-ARMM

COTABATO CITY — Memorable will 2016 be to 237 low-income Tausug peasants in Siasi island town in Sulu who each got this week written entitlement to lands they have fought to own for decades.

The symbolic release by local officials and representatives from the Department of Agrarian Reform of certificates of land ownership award (CLOAs) to beneficiaries in Siasi was the first ever in the so dangerous Sulu province.

Amihilda Sangcopan, regional agrarian reform secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), on Friday told The STAR the distribution of CLOAs to 237 recipients will improve agricultural productivity in Siasi.

Sulu is ruled by recalcitrant politician-landlords opposed to the distribution of lands to tenants even as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) so dictates.

Sulu is a component province of ARMM, which also covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainland Mindanao, and the islands of Basilan and Tawi-Tawi.

The distribution of CLOAs to Siasi residents was held on December 26 at the auditorium of the Notre Dame of Siasi, a Catholic school in the old island town still recovering from the devastation wrought by armed conflicts in decades past.

“Some of the beneficiaries, mostly `senior citizens,’ wept as they received their CLOAs,” Sangcopan said.

The 237 agrarian reform beneficiaries belong to the Tulling Farm Workers Multi Cooperative, mostly residents of Barangay Tuling in Siasi.

They started only as ordinary farm workers in the Filagro Development Corporation, owner of the contiguous agricultural lands eventually distributed to them after many years of tedious adjudication proceedings.

The firm collected 50 percent of their income from farming in the 1,300-hectare plantation it once owned.

Sulu is known as the most dangerous and poorest province in the country and where landlords keep private armies to perpetuate political power and ownership of their lands.

The CARP has never been religiously enforced in Sulu since its enactment into law during the time of President Corazon Aquino due to rabid opposition by armed landlords and wealthy politicians.

They are against CARP’s provisions on the distribution of parcels of their private lands to long-time tenants.

There are thousands of hectares of private lands in mainland Sulu the government can hardly subject to CARP due to opposition by owners and the ruling elite there.

The CARP, also known as Republic Act 6657, is meant to promote social justice among workers in the agricultural sector through permanent land tenure and access to government facets providing interventions needed to ensure their productivity.

“Year 2016 will be so memorable for these agrarian reform beneficiaries in Siasi. It is the year they each received their long-awaited CLOA,” Sangcopan said.