Monday, May 12, 2008 Iggy orders research to identify church's land in Payao
REPRESENTATIVE Ignacio 'Iggy' Arroyo Jr. (5th district, Negros Occidental) has commissioned a research that would identify the land in Barangay Payao, Binalbagan, allegedly owned by the Diocese of Kabankalan.
Such move was in answer to Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra's claim that when he was still the bishop of the Diocese of Kabankalan, he "already offered the land owned by the diocese for the government's Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp)."
The legislator said he was "amazed" by the pronouncement made by the bishop to Sun.Star Bacolod Thursday.
"I don't know it. But I'd already made a query and commissioned somebody to look into this," he added.
Arroyo and Navarra's verbal tussle was rooted on the recent appeal of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to also implement Carp on Arroyos landholdings, especially in Negros.
In response, Arroyo dared the bishops to also allow their landholdings to be covered by voluntary offer to sale (VOS) or Carp.(Erwin Ambo Delilan)
