OVER 1,000 farmers from five villages in Arakan, North Cotabato, held a protest and camp outside the Cotabato Foundation College of Science and Technology (CFCST) to seek for the allocation of land to the farmers.
The protest, which was led by the Mailuminado Farmers’ Association Incorporated (Mafai), was composed of around 500 students and faculty members of the CFCST in Doroluman village in Arakan. The students and staff boycotted their classes.
Mafai Chairperson Cecilio Carmelo, in a statement emailed to SunStar Davao Wednesday, December 7, said the farmers are asking for the immediate distribution of their farmland which is estimated to be 4,124 hectares.
Carmelo said the 4,124 hectares of farmland is part of the 5,091 hectares that was declared as a reservation area for the Mindanao Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of the Southern Mindanao (USM).
He added this was declared by President Carlos Garcia on July 24, 1954 through a Presidential Declaration 428.
Republic Act 3801 allotted 1,000 hectares from 5,091 hectares for Children’s Education Foundation Village, where the CFCST now stands, on July 22, 1963. This was awarded a land title despite the occupancy of farmers in the land.
“We are the rightful owner of this land. Our ancestors were already tilling this land before the government declared this as a land reservation,” Carmelo said.
Carmelo said they appealed to the Department of Agrarian Reform to seize the 4,000 hectares of land that was not utilized by the USM reservation, including the 700 hectares occupied by the CFCST.
The students and faculty emphasized the rampant corruption and mismanagement of the current CFCST administration and called for the ouster of President Samson Molao, Carmelo said.
He added the Mafai farmers also support the call for the ouster of Molao for his position against the distribution of the CFCST-USM land reservation to the farmers. He added the land was idle for about six decades.