Friday, October 12, 2007 Lawmaker: Gov’t officials control Tamlang Valley By Edmund B. Sestoso
SIATON, Negros Oriental -- Representative (3rd District) Henry Teves disclosed that there are individuals, several of whom are government officials, who control hundreds if not thousands of hectares of agricultural lands in Tamlang Valley.
Teves said this is one of the obstacles why his previous move of passing an ordinance, declaring Tamlang Valley as “alienable and disposable lands” from being a public land, had not been pushed through when he was then a member of the Provincial Board of the province.
Tamlang Valley has an estimated 24,000 hectares of agricultural lands, 10,000 of which was leased by former representative Herminio Teves intended for the massive jathropa plantation to support the production of bio-fuel as mandated under an executive order issued by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Alienable and disposable lands (A & D) are those lands of the public domain, which are classified and determined not to be needed for forest purposes and are available for disposition under Commonwealth Act No. 141, as amended by the Public Land Act.
It also specifies that no land of the public domain, 18 percent in slope or over, which have already been declared as A & D shall be reverted to the classification of forestlands to form part of the forest reserves.
These lands are subject for title.
“Sa dihang gisugdan na nako ni ug tinguha nga makonbertir ang maong liboan ka yuta, kalit lang dunay mga indibidwal nga miduol nako ug moingon nga sila nanag-iya ug mokabat sa 100 ngadto sa 200 ka ektaryas nga mga kayutaan dinha sa Tamlang Valley (When I started to aim for the conversion of these public lands, individuals were coming up to me claiming they own these lands ranging 100 to 200 hectares in Tamlang Valley,” emphasized Representative Teves.
He said what he wanted is for the lands at the Tamlang Valley to be classified as A & D, and for the same to be equally distributed to the farmers who are tilling the land in their respective areas.
The lawmaker lamented that some of those individuals who approached him claiming ownership of these lands in Tamlang Valley were high government officials.
He suspects that these individuals who control hundreds of lands in Tamlang Valley were the ones who also instigated to “protest” the massive planting of jathropa project initiated by his grandfather, former representative Herminio Teves.
Representative Teves even lauded his grandfather for doing such move as it will also help alleviate the plight of the farmers in the area.
He also dismissed insinuations that his grandfather is a land grabber.
“That is outrightly false and these are lies peddled by several individuals who do not want the farmers’ economic situation would be a little bit increased,” he said.
Representative Teves refused to identify though those individuals that own tracts of lands in the area.
