Julian Philip A.

Soriano
AGECON 55
IN TARLAC CARP gives land to the wealthy
BGY TINANG, CONCEPCION, Tarlac - When President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo last
week began her six-year term, her inaugural address had one glaring omission: it made
no mention of land reform.
But here in Tinang, members of the rich de Leon clan found a way to keep their land
through the Voluntary Land Transfer (VLT) scheme, a method of land distribution that
requires no government money and minimal intervention from the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR). How they did that and how this remained undetected for nearly
a decade exposes the many flaws of a program that was supposed to be the
cornerstone of former President Corazon Aquino's social justice agenda.
"If you ask me are we tenants, are we farmers, no, we're not," says Michael Escaler, a
54-year-old member of de Leon clan, which owns the Tinang hacienda. "Are you asking
me how I got there, how it happened, I have no idea." Escaler is a sugar miller and
shareholder of the National Life Insurance Corp.
Yet his signature, as well as those of his relatives, appears on numerous documents
now on file at the Municipal Agrarian Reform Office in Concepcion, Tarlac. The
documents entitled them to individual Certificates of Land Ownership Award or CLOAs,
now filed at the Tarlac Register of Deeds. CLOAs are titles to the land supposed to be
given only to the landless farmer-beneficiaries.
Source: http://pcij.org/stories/2004/carp.html

Reflection:
This is evidence that there is weak implementation of the said law. Even those
who are supposedly beneficiaries, are cheated into losing the lands that should be
legally theirs. The inherent corruption and numerous loopholes inside the law makes it
difficult for farmers and poor people to be blessed with a property.