45 Camarines Sur farmers start 444-km protest walk to Manila

MANILA, Philippines - Forty-five farmers belonging to the Banasi Agrarian Reform Farmer Beneficiary Association (BARFBA) started their 444-kilometer walk to Malacanang at 9 a.m. Monday from Sitio Banasi, Barangay Pawili in Bula, Camarines Sur. They are marching to the Palace to demand that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reverse the April 2008 decision signed by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita that led to their losing 123-hectares of land formerly owned by the Fajardo-Imperial families. Ermita's directive mandated the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to withdraw the Certificate of Landownership Award (CLOA) given to 57 Banasi farmers 11 years ago and restore the ownership of land to the Fajardo-Imperial families. Ermita found the land to be a pasture land and therefore not covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) even as DAR and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) insisted the land was planted to sugarcane, rice and corn. "I just want to leave my 1.7-hectare land as inheritance to my 100 grandchildren," said Poblen Clavero, 82, the oldest among the marchers. Jason, Remar, and Aaron, 18, the youngest among the 45 marchers wish to finish their education. When they reach Manila, the marchers will join a bigger protest action called the National Land Pilgrimage for Equity and Social Justice for the immediate passage of the CARP Extension and Reforms (CARPER) Bill now pending in both Houses of Congress. Among these reforms are the substantial increase in funding to ensure two milllion hectares of land get awarded to 1.4 million farmers and the assurance that land titles already given to farmers cannot anymore be cancelled after a one-year time prescription, thus ensuring the Banasi case would not happen again. - GMANews.TV