FARMERS belonging to Task Force Mapalad (TFM) on Thursday called on the House of Representatives to investigate landed lawmakers from the Negros provinces for alleged violation of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees in connection with the proposal to extend anew the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
This, as TFM filed a formal complaint against Liberal Party (LP) Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Bantug Benitez of Negros Occidental.
TFM also wants the House Ethics Committee, chaired by LP Rep. Joaquin Chipeco Jr. of Laguna, to investigate other landlord-politicians composing the Visayas bloc, who include Unega Rep. Jeffrey Ferrer of Negros Occidental, LP Rep. Alejandro Mirasol of Negros Occidental, Nationalist People’s Coalition Rep. Pryde Henry Teves of Negros Occidental and LP Rep. Jerry Treñas of Iloilo City.
Like Benitez, Ferrer, Mirasol, Teves and Treñas are all pushing for amendments to House Bill 4296, allegedly to circumvent CARP and keep haciendas already covered by the program under the control of their families, TFM claimed.
HB 4296 seeks to complete the land-acquisition and distribution-component of the agrarian-reform program, issue notices of coverage (NOCs) to landholdings covered by the CARP, and provide adequate funding for support services to agricultural landholdings that have not yet been placed under agrarian reform.
Among the Benitez-led Visayan bloc’s proposed amendment to HB 4296 is the increase to 5 hectares of the retention rights of each of the heirs of a deceased landowner, whose agricultural landholdings with an aggregate area of more than 5 hectares are subject to CARP, but has not yet been issued NOC.
Under the law, a landowner who dies after June 15, 1988, and whose land was issued an NOC is allowed to retain a maximum of 5 hectares of his landholding.
But under the proposed amendment by Benitez and the Visayan bloc, if such landholdings were not issued an NOC before January 1, 2015, each heir would retain 5 hectares.
“If said proposed amendment is approved and becomes law, Representative Benitez and members of his family would be the direct beneficiaries of the amendment to raise to 5 hectares the retention rights of the heirs of dead landowners, as three of their four deceased family members own landholdings subject to CARP that have not yet been issued NOC,” said the farmers in their complaint.
In a 12-page complaint filed by TFM against Benitez and the other members of the Visayan block in the House of Representatives, the four deceased family members of the Bantug-Benitez family are Abelardo de Leon Bantug, grandfather of Benitez on his mother’s side; Remedios Palanca Benitez, grandmother of Benitez on his mother’s side, Abelardo P. Bantug, son of Abelardo and Remedios and uncle of Bantug; and Betty Bantug Benitez, the mother of Benitez.
The complaint said that, based on data from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the Bantug-Benitez clan has a total of 49 agricultural landholdings with a total area of 1,135 hectares subject to CARP.
Nine of these 49 landholdings, with sizes of more than 5 hectares each, have not yet been issued NOCs and are either solely owned or jointly owned with the three members of the Bantug-Benitez clan who are already deceased, the complainants said.
TFM Negros Chapter President Alberto Jayme said Benitez and his colleagues from the Visayan bloc “should inhibit themselves from voting on HB 4296 and introducing amendments to the bill because of clear conflict of interest.”
“The amendments they want are like dagdag-bawas [padding and shaving]. They want to reduce the landholdings that will be distributed to farmers so that they can increase the landholdings that will remain under their and their families’ control,” Jayme said.
Also, farmers in their complaint accused Benitez and his family of “evading CARP for the last 27 years, as evidenced by the numerous landholdings that should have been distributed to farmer-beneficiaries of CARP long ago, but have remained under the ownership and control of the Bantug-Benitez clan.”