PinoyPundit

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Brighter tomorrows for Sumilao farmers

Posted on December 18, 2007 - Filed Under Governance

The 55 visibly exhausted farmers . . . all members of the Higaonon tribe . . . had walked some 1,700 kilometers in the past two months from Sumilao, Bukidnon to Malacañang Palace in what must have been a collective act of desperation. However, when they arrived at their destination last week, they found out to their great dismay that the one person they had hoped to see . . . Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo . . . was at the time traipsing all across France, Spain, and the United Kingdom accompanied by what was reported as the largest contingent of junketing congresspersons and senators in recent history.

But things are looking bright for the Sumilao farmers. After two meetings Monday with Pres. Arroyo to whom they reiterated their claim to 144 hectares of agricultural land in Bukidnon as their ancestral domain . . . the same that had been acquired under unclear circumstances by a well-placed family and subsequently sold to San Miguel Foods for development into a piggery project . . . Malacañang has indicated that it will place the contested property under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)

Now all that needs to be done to make everybody happy . . . with the understandable exception of San Miguel Foods . . . is for the Department of Agrarian Reform to expeditiously source the funds to buy the property from SMF and split it into 55 parcels that the Sumilao trekkers can afford to re-acquire.

Glori be to GMA! A few more common-sense and compassionate decisions like this and she can conceivably expect her public opinion polling figures to start inching up north into positives next time around.

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