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Your Excellency,

As an organization concerned with the protection of human rights, we want to express our deep concern about the violent dispersal by policemen in riot gear and truncheon-wielding enforcers of the Metro Manila Development Authority on February 5 of an estimated 400 farmers protesting outside the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Quezon City.
At least 10 farmers were injured, two of them seriously, while two others were arrested for allegedly being caught with Molotov bombs, a charge strongly denied by the organizers of the campout.

The MMDA ordered the dispersal allegedly because they were violating the MMDA's directive of illegally occupying the sidewalks; however the protestors had been issued an MMDA permit dated Feb. 3. which was set to expire on Feb. 28, 2004. The attack also violates the democratic right to peaceful assembly as guaranteed in section 4 of the Philippine Constitution of 1987.

The farmers, belonging to the farmers organization UNORKA, set up their camp at DAR to protest the decisions of Secretary Pagdanganan to exempt from land reform about 1000 hectares of land belonging to four agricultural corporations of businessman Antonio Floirendo in Davao del Norte province. Pagdanganan's Darco Order 0012-03 set aside the April 24, 2002 decision by then Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza ordering the acquisition for land reform of these four Floirendo-owned landholdings.

According to the farmers, the Darco didn't follow all the procedures necessary in coming up with their decisions. They claim that the cases were decided with undue haste and without the prescribed ocular inspection of the property by the DAR central office. While the decisions in 2002, of the various levels of DAR offices in Davao del Norte and Mindanao in favor of farmer-beneficiaries, were based on on-site findings and due course and were even upheld by the Darco headed by previous agrarian reform secretaries.

The protest of the farmers of UNORKA is also directed at more than 150 cases of land disputes earlier decided in favor of the farmers, which Secretary Pagdanganan allegedly reversed in favor of the landowners as of December 2003. Beside this, the farmers request resolution of at least 69 land cases which are still not resolved by DAR since April 2003, when DAR official committed to UNORKA to address these cases soon in favor of the farmer beneficiaries.

Your Excellency, we urge you to order a thorough investigation of the violent dispersal of the farmers and take appropriate actions against the authorities responsible.

We also urge you to order a review of the actions taken by Secretary Pagdanganan to set aside the decisions of previous agrarian reform secretaries to grant the land to the farmers; in the case of the four Floirendo estates, the case of the Moldex Realty Inc. property in Silang town, Cavite Province and for allowing over 150 exemptions and land conversions involving property covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of the government.

And based on this review we ask you to dialogue with UNORKA in order to settle the issues raised by them in a manner which takes their rights, as imbedded in the Constitution and in CARP, fully into account.

Yours Sincerely,

cc. Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform

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