DAR orders coverage
for Laiya Ibabaw estate

THE Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Monday ordered the immediate coverage of the 124-hectare property formerly managed by the defunct Hennessy Development Corporation in Laiya Ibabaw, San Juan, Batangas.

"At this time, the property remains agricultural and there are no legal impediments to effect the distribution of the lands to qualified farmer-beneficiaries," DAR secretary Nasser Pangan-daman said in a statement as DAR official Ibra Omar denied allegations that he has been blocking the issuance of the notice of coverage under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program to Hennessy.

Some of the farmers from Laiya Ibabaw managed to get past the DAR gate last week seeking a meeting with Omar, a director of DAR's Bureau of Agrarian Legal Assistance, but were restrained, with physical harm to them, by security guards.

The farmers belonging to the Laiya Ibabaw Samahang Mag-sasaka (Lisamag) called for Omar's relief for allegedly lawyering for Hennessy and contravening the order of the DAR Field Operations Office by preventing Batangas provincial agrarian reform officer Cynthia Lapid from issuing the notice of coverage.

Lisamag said it was Lapid who told them Omar ordered her not to issue the notice of coverage because the landowner had a pending appeal before the Office of the President for the renewal of its land conversion plan.

Omar on Monday denied the allegations, saying he has no authority to stop the issuance of the notice. "I was the one who found out that there are no legal prohibitions on the issuance of NOC. In fact, my opinion was the basis of the issuance of the memorandum to cover the Hennessy landholding," he said. "(The issuance of the NOC) is a purely operational matter. I don't involve myself with the concerns of operations."

Omar also denied Lisamag chairman Vicente Ayap's accusation that he had sold out the farmers to a Taiwanese firm operating in Laiya Ibabaw. "I do not know any Taiwanese, not even one lawyer or representative of Hennessy."