World Bank-funded project in Negros spells division, violence for farming communities

Under the SPLIT project funded by the World Bank, no actual new land distribution takes place. Former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano said that there are still more than 500,000 hectares of agricultural land undistributed. 

MANILA – Cultivating lands for four decades, Argene Seron is fighting for their collectivized land. She is the chairperson of the Kabankalan Farmers Association and their collective Certificate Land of Ownership Award (CLOA) has 38 beneficiaries for 129 hectares of land. 

“Collective lands make it hard for investors to displace us in times of land conversion and land reclassification. Both the government and the private investors have to communicate with us collectively,” said Seron in Filipino, in an interview with Bulatlat. “If the majority does not want a certain project being offered to the community, it will not prosper.”

Seron and her fellow farmers’ collective CLOA is being targeted for Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT), a flagship initiative of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) funded by the World Bank (WB). Launched in 2021 and initially slated for completion in 2025, the Marcos Jr. administration has since extended the program, aiming to see it through by the end of the president’s term.

Not land distribution

Former Anakpawis Representative and former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano said that this program is not actually a form of “land distribution.”

“Their only objective is to divide what has already been awarded as collective CLOA to individual CLOA. In their reports, it will come off as if there had been a large awarding of CLOA. But that is not the case,” said Mariano, also chairperson-emeritus of peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), in Filipino in a press conference on July 24.

Earlier this year, the Department of Agrarian Reform reported that almost 195,000 land titles have been distributed under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. However, Mariano contested that 68 percent of these land titles were only divided from the existing collective CLOA of the farmers.

“It has been three years already. There is no new land subjected to notice of coverage (NOC). There are still more than 500,000 hectares of agricultural land undistributed,” Mariano added.

The violence that follows

Seron lost count on how many times the elements from the 94th Infantry Battalion visited their farming community, persuading them to join the SPLIT project. 

“There was an instance when a soldier and a man who claimed to know me, visited us. The man claimed he is a former rebel,” Seron recalled. “I told the military and the alleged former rebel blatantly that I don’t know him. I ignored his attempt to point fingers on innocent farmers, branding them as rebels.”

There were also moments when the soldiers would bring them agricultural products and food supplies, only to be asked for them to surrender later on. The soldiers have also been asking them to disaffiliate from Paghida-et sa Kauswagan Development Group, Inc. (PDG), a Negros-based non-government organization known for supporting farming communities in the region.

PDG is among the organizations severely affected by the spate of terrorism financing charges against development workers. Just a day after New Year’s celebration this year, two of their development workers have been charged with two to three counts of violations of Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA).

Read: Negros-based NGO helping farmers exposes lies, inaccuracies in terror financing complaint

Months later, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 31 of Iloilo City dismissed the charges, citing the mode of designation under the said law as unconstitutional. Despite this, they remain vigilant as the situation in the community remains risky: PDG and its allied communities are being subjected to surveillance and consistent red-tagging.

Read: Following arrest of development workers, PDG reports surveillance

“They were forcing us to disaffiliate from PDG because the military said that they are rebels. But we know it’s not true. It is with their help that we are able to assert our land ownership, even when Atty. Ben was still here with us,” said Seron.

Seron was referring to human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos, former head of PDG and known for assisting the families of the nine farm workers massacred in a hacienda in Sagay. Ramos was shot dead in Negros Occidental on November 6, 2018, during the height of counterinsurgency-related killings in the province during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte.

Read: People’s lawyers face false charges, Red-tagging, murder

“Whenever they try to red-tag us, we assert our rights. We told them that we are not enemies of the government,” Seron said. “No matter what they do, we maintain our lands collectivized.”

In the backdrop of counter-insurgency

A 2023 publication by KMP, PDG, Ibon International, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty (PCFS), and Center for Social and Economic Rights (CESR) showed that the SPLIT is being implemented within a context of heightened militarization in response to peasant resistance. 

Historically, the militarized “assistance” has been a major part of the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), outlined in the memorandum between DAR and Philippine National Police, Department of Defense, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). In addition to this, SPLIT includes a protocol for the use of local police or military in the environmental and social management framework. 

“Poor peasants have been victimized as a result. Various agrarian disputes have led to state agents arbitrarily arresting or firing upon ARBs [agrarian reform beneficiaries] or farmer-claimants asserting their right to land,” the publication stated. 

It also underscored that the militarized approach to the implementation of the project is part of the “whole-of-the-nation approach” counterinsurgency program. DAR is a member agency of the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). 

Five farmers organizations, including the Kabankalan Farmers’ Association, in Negros Occidental who participated in the 2023 study, said that military presence is very evident in all steps of the SPLIT process, even in the initial consultation meeting held by DAR for affected agrarian reform beneficiaries.

All organizations also expressed that their opposition to the SPLIT project is due to its threat to their right to collective ownership and effective control over their lands, and its detrimental impacts on their collective practices, communal farming, and peasant-led land redistribution program.

For whom? 

Mariano further highlighted that the impacts of the SPLIT project are detrimental for farmers. “They will make these individual land titles [converted] marketable, a readily available instrument in the market of lands. Later on, it will exacerbate the concentration and re-monopolization of lands by landlords and corporations.”

This is also among the reasons why Seron and her association maintain their staunch opposition. She said that the surrender of their lands to individual titling will make the entry of private investors easier.

Some lands in the Negros Occidental have been under the threat of conversion to non-agricultural use even before the SPLIT project emerged. For example, Proton Realty has declared ownership of at least 87 hectares in barangay Orong in 2018, to be used for the development of an island-wide government center.

A 2019 research of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) reported that the poverty and persecution compelled the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) to put their CLOAs under elicit arrangements such as aryendo (land lease), prenda (land pawning), or an outright sale..

“It can’t be said that corporations won’t benefit from this, especially that corporations are often owned by political dynasties, government officials, real estate tycoons, and even foreign entities,” Mariano added.

In totality, the major flaw of the project is judged not only by its market-based land reform framework, but by its disregard to the reality of land monopolies and agrarian unrest in the country. 

Seron said,“We know who will benefit in this project, and it is not us farmers.”

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