Sumilao Question

San Miguel Foods launched a publicity counter-offensive to the marching landless Sumilao farmers. The latter has succeeded in convincing President Arroyo to revoke the land conversion order which is being carried out by San Miguel in the disputed farm lands in Bukidnon. Ads placed in newspapers show a detailed cost-benefit analysis of how Sumilao town is going to benefit from San Miguel's investment in the area.

That is well and good, except that ownership of the land is at stake here, not the benefits of agrarian conversion. Who has the final property rights? San Miguel, or the Sumilao farmers?

The issue is complicated and goes back to Ramos' term as President, but what I understand is that the landowner with which the farmers had a dispute with, Quisumbing, got the land from the farmers (who were earlier awarded land titles under the CARP) on the condition that he convert the area into an agro-industrial area (e.g., piggery), which means it is exempted from the CARP coverage.

He failed to convert the area for agro-industrial purposes, or I suspect, he had no intention of doing that to begin with. True enough, he simply used the opportunity to take the land away from the legal CARP beneficiaries (the Sumilao farmers), to sell it sometime in the future to a company with the means to enforce the conversion, San Miguel Foods.

I sympathize with the Sumilao farmers, of course. I grew up in Bukidnon, and Sumilao is near our town of Manolo Fortich. There are large tracts of land planted with pineapples as well in Sumilao. The town is basically agricultural, and unlike many provinces in the Philippines where the land is idle, in Sumilao, the farms are productive.