Iggy exempt own lands from CARP

April 22, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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While ordinary Filipinos face the threat of food shortages caused by dwindling agricultural land, sugar barons in Congress are tuning their vast haciendas and other lands into plantations to produce and process biofuels, to exempt them from the land reform coverage (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.)

One of the beneficiaries of the newly-approved bio-fuel law is presidential brother-in-law Ignacio “Iggy” Arroyo who will convert his family’s 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Isabela, Negros Occidental into agro-industrial uses, Arroyo and other hacienda owners, including Sen. S. Zubiri pushed through with this legislation to exempt their vast lands from CARP.

Farmers charge the conversion of the Arroyo property from rice, corn and sugar lands will nullify the claims of 67 farmer-beneficiarie s who have been waiting for more than a decade for the Department of Agrarian Reform to award them Hacienda Bacan. The impending conversion of Hacienda Bacan not only contradicts supposed policy statements by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo last week that she favored a moratorium on land conversions to preserve the country’s agricultural economy. It also shows how the country’s lawmakers, including a member of the President’s own family, are making a windfall from crafting laws designed to promote their own business interests.

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Posted by News Team | Filed Under Philippine News 

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