CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Displaced farmers in Misamis Oriental, who were affected by the Laguindingan airport project over a decade ago, will finally be compensated three months from now.
This was the assurance of Faisal Mambuay, regional director of the Department of Agrarian Reform in Region 10 (DAR 10), in a press conference on Wednesday.
Mambuay said the computation process for the more than 200 families will last until April, if plans don’t miscarry. From then on, he said the compensation will start trickling in.
Mambuay said people who were not original beneficiaries when the farmers won their case against Ayala Corporation before the Supreme Court (SC) took advantage of the situation, and started listing themselves as among the claimants before DAR.
He said this complicated the computation process because DAR had to verify the real claimants to separate them from the false ones.
“This usually occurs when there is a long land dispute here in our country. Certain people take advantage by listing themselves as claimants when they had not toiled the land in fact,” Mambuay said.
Ayala Corporation already owned the land occupied by 403 farming families in the 1990s in barangay Tubajon, Laguindingan town, when the national government informed the company that they will be using the property and convert it as an airport.
The conglomerate promptly donated the 400-hectare property to the national government, paying the farmers disturbance compensation in the amount of P100,000 each.
Only around 200 farmers agreed with the amount then.
The rest challenged the Ayala computation and went to court. The litigation eventually landed before the Supreme Court recently, with the farmers winning the case. (Mark D. Francisco/PNA)
