Conflicting laws on land use further disadvantage marginalized sector

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Feb. 27, 2011—The Philippine Congress is very good at crafting timely and relevant laws that protect and advance the protection of the marginalized sectors of Philippine society. But sadly, these laws have not been adequately implemented or their implementation only benefits the so-called privileged class 
and not the marginalized sectors they were created for in the first place, said a party-list representative.
                “Laws can be twisted by those who know to favor their views and benefit themselves. That is why we need to register our voice so that, somehow, we can help shape a piece of legislation according to our reality,” said Rep. Arlene “Kaka” Bag-ao of the Akbayan Party-list.

                Bag-ao, former executive director of the alternative law group Balay Alternative Legal Advocates for Development in Mindanaw(BALAOD Mindanaw), Inc, said during the Mindanao-wide consultation House Bill 478 or the Zoning and Land Use Policy Act (ZLUPA) that such laws that are being used to further disadvantaged the marginalized sector these laws were created for are the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), Urban Development and Housing Act (UDHA), Agriculture and Fisheries 
Modernization Act (AFMA), National Integrated Protected Areas System Act (NIPAS), among others.      
                “Although these laws and others have been very beneficial to sector-specific groups, their separate implementation have also created an overlapping of claims between marginalized sectors. This adverse situation is 
further worsened by the presence of land conversions, mining activities and logging concessions approved by the government,” she said in a separate interview.
                Because of this, conflict often arise because various government agencies issue different and often conflicting tenurial instruments and land uses over the same land — as agricultural land, ancestral domain, tourism, economic zones, mineral explorations, protected areas, rural and coastal settlement, among others.
                Such is the case of Datu Marcial Tahuyan of the Manobo tribe of Don Carlos, Bukidnon. Tahuyan is the leader of the Lumida Group, one of the indigenous people-claimants of a portion of the 2,697 hectares of the former 
Cojuango Estate. 
                “We have formally filed our claim of a portion of this estate as part of our ancestral territory in 1990,” he told this reporter. Tahuyan, who is also chairperson of the San Luis Bukidnon Native Farmers Association, said that his group is claiming at least 700 hectares as part of their ancestral lands. 
                Aside from Tahuyan, two other Manobo groups are also claiming portions of the former Cojuangco Estate as their ancestral lands as early as the 1930s. When the Cojuangco Estate was sequestered by the Aquino administration in 1986, the estate was covered under Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) 
for distribution to qualified beneficiaries without regard to the original and decades-old ancestral land claims of the indigenous peoples.
                Worst, there are at least 15 groups consisting of farmers, farmworkers and other landless residents that are asserting their rights over the estate under CARP while Tahuyan’s group and two other Manobo groups are asserting their rights over portions of the estate under IPRA.
                Complicating the case was the entry in 2004 of multi-national companies such as the DAVCCO-DPFI which converted several hectares of the estate into commercial plantations resulting to the displacement of the inhabitants.
                Because of his leadership in asserting his tribe’s rights over the land, Tahuyan has been targeted for assassination. On September 27, 2001, gunmen fired upon his home, injuring two members of his family. Tahuyan said he is still getting death threats up to the present.
                “Clearly, the absence of a land use framework and sectoral laws conflicting with each other result in increasing cases of conflicting claims on land use.  Such are our case in Don Carlos, Bukidnon where the ancestral lands of the Manobo indigenous communities were distributed by the DAR to non-IP groups resulting in conflicting situation between IPs and farmers,” he said in a statement.
                To remedy this situation, Akbayan’s Bag-ao filed HB 478 or the ZLUPA Bill to Act that seeks to harmonize all existing laws affecting the land.

                HB 478 “seeks to harmonize the reasonable claims of all those who hold interest on land and safeguards and promotes the general welfare of both existing and future generations through the proper management of land resources. It provides guidelines and criteria for land use based on the assessment of the development needs of various sectors in a participatory bottom-up approach,” she said.
                HB 478 is only one of nine other proposed measures on Land Use pending in Congress. It’s main author described it as “adevelopment planning guide on land use with public interest and welfare as the overarching principles.”
                Bag-ao, who is very optimistic that her proposed law will be enacted since President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III has certified the bill as a priority measure, stressed the need for such a law because conflict in land uses is intensifying.
                When passed into law, HB 478 calls for the creation of an Inter-agency Mapping Support System, the establishment of the Land Use Conflict Claims Council and the Land Use Planning Council (LUPC), which will have a bottoms-up approach. (Bong D. Fabe)