v11n0203

AHRC-UAC-071-2010; AHRC-UAU-034-2011
A group of farmers and their children were at the makeshift
tent that they built on 5 April 2010. They were protesting against
the cutting down of coconut trees which they cultivated at the
plantation of the hacienda yulo. Cutting down of the coconut
trees was seen by the farmers as part of the landowners’ action
to implement the conversion of the contested farm land for
residential, industrial and commercial purposes. This would allow
them to construct an expensive housing subdivision depriving the
farmers of their livelihood.
The farmers were at the main road entrance to Sitio Buntog
when land surveyors arrived. They were led by Dan Calvo, an
architect connected to Jose yulo Architect & Associates, Laguna
Estate Development Corporation and San Cristobal Realty
Corporation, owned by the yulos. In their company were at least
20 private security guards, a composite team of about 30 members
of the Special weapons and Army Tactics (SwAT), policemen from
the Calamba City Police Station and the Police Regional Office
of the PnP.
One of the witnesses, Axel Pinpin, secretary-general of
Katipunan ng mga magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (Kasama-
TK) (Federation of Peasant Organisations in Southern Tagalog),
said he saw the farmers approaching Calvo to speak and to
discuss with him about their grievances. however, he ignored
them with his outright arrogance. when the farmers showed to
Calvo their pending petition before the Office of the President (OP)
for the revocation of the questionable order of the DAR issued in
1992 exempting the hacienda yulo from distribution under the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, he refused to recognize
the validity of the petition.
At the time, the policemen and private security guards
escorting Calvo were all carrying long firearms. They allegedly
began violently pushing the protesting farmers away and arrested
them one after another taking them to the Calamba City Police
Station. They also arrested the four boys because they were with
their parents. The four boys were taken into the custody of the
Department of Social welfare and Development. The boys who
were supposed to have been released for lack of criminal liability
being minors were nevertheless included in the charges that the
police filed together with the adults. They filed charges for violation
of Article 148, for Direct Assaults; Article 155, for Alarms and
Scandals; and Article 286, for grave Coercions of the RPC.
However, the Complaint-Affidavit submitted by the police to the
court did not contain information or allegations on the acts the
farmers committed against them on the offense of grave Coercion
and Alarms and Scandal as required under the RPC. Firstly, the
policemen were unable to prove sufficiently that “violence” had
indeed been used to “prevent (them) from doing something not
prohibited by law to justify grave Coercion; secondly, nothing
in their statement contains acts that would justify that they
had committed “Alarms and Scandal”. Also, one of the charges
article 2 � June-Sept 2012 Vol. 11, No. 2-3
“
The farmers
protested against
the cutting down of
coconut trees which
they cultivated.”
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