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Ni Ime Sornito
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Former members of a farmers’ cooperative working on lots owned by former ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. (ECJ) in Negros Occidental were seeking the revocation of their land production share agreement.
ECJ Farmers and Farm Workers Alliance in Negros (Effwan) called on Department of Agrarian Reform secretary Rafael Mariano to help them.
They wanted the joint venture agreement (JVA) and the voluntary land transfer/direct payment scheme between the ECJ Farmworkers Agrarian Beneficiaries Multipurpose Cooperative (Efarbemco) and the landowner cancelled.
But Efarbemco members were not amenable to the demands of the Effwan.
Effwan members were former members of Efarbemco — all holders of certificates of landownership award (CLOA) for 4,654 hectares of Cojuangco-owned land subject to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
In a news conference on Monday at the Negros Press Club building, Effwan members told reporters they never felt any change in their lives while working under the JVA for almost 20 years.
Under the “corporate scheme,” they remained “poor and not millionaires,” they said.
The JVA provides for a 70-30 land production share — 70 percent for the landowner and 30 percent for the farmworkers.
On the other hand, under the voluntary land transfer/direct payment scheme, “the landowner shall exercise his right of retention simultaneously at the time of the offer for sale or transfer,” stated the Department of Agrarian Reform Administrative Order No. 2, series of 2003.
Only a general assembly can decide on the JVA, Efarbemco officials said in a statement.
“Revocation is impossible,” said Francisco “Tanoy” Oplas, Efarbemco adviser and former chairman.
“The JVA will expire in 2024, and all its provisions were approved by the general assembly,” said Oplas. “They (Effwan) should wait for the expiration. Their cause is also our cause. We have to respect and observe the provisions of the [JVA].”
Efarbemco has 712 members “of good standing.” Out of the 1,756 original members, 500 formed the breakaway group while 300 were already ageing and have lost interest in staying, the cooperative said.
Efarbemco chairman Edgar dela Rama stressed that their cooperative cultivated their lands and made them productive.
ECJ Farms comprise more or less 5,000 hectares of lands but some portions were exempted from CARP coverage./PN
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