A PEACE pact facilitated by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) between Christians and Muslim agrarian-reform beneficiaries in Makilala, North Cotabato, recently will help boost the government’s peace effort in Mindanao.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes said the peace covenant signed by leaders of two warring groups of farmers on January 31 could put an end to almost four decades of bloody encounters over the 178-hectare land in the area.
Delos Reyes said the signing of the Peace Covenant would enable the DAR to complete the process of land titling as well as actual distribution of land.
He commended the agency’s field officials and personnel and the local government officials of North Cotabato for working hand in hand to forge the agreement between the feuding groups in Sitio Lacobe.
“Now, our people in the field can do their work, without fear of intimidation, to ensure that only deserving agrarian-reform beneficiaries would own a piece of land in the contested area,” he added.
The implementation of agrarian reform program in Sitio Lacobe had been hampered by bloody encounters between two groups of farmer-beneficiaries—the Baclid group and the Christian ARBs.
The rift reportedly turned more violent after the Baclid group and the Christian ARBs sought intervention from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the National Democratic Front (NDF), respectively, to firm up their claim to the contested area.
The roots of the problem were traced to the early 1970s, when a group of Moro farmers led by a certain Sailila Baclid was displaced from Sitio Lacobe owing to armed encounters between the Moro “Blackshirts” and the Christian “Ilagas.”
The Baclid group claimed that they were adamant to return to their land in Sitio Lacobe because the Ilagas were against the presence of Moros in the area. Their problem turned worse when some of the Ilagas joined the communist New People’s Army, which used Sitio Lacobe as a training ground.
The Baclid group recounted that in 1990, the Municipal Agrarian Reform Officer (Maro) of Tulunan, North Cotabato, met with Sailila Baclid and advised the latter and his group to return to their land in Sitio Lacobe.
The move was necessary to enable the DAR to include the Baclid group on the list of potential agrarian-reform beneficiaries who may be given individual parcels of land under the program.
The Baclid group managed to return to their land only after the NPA’s local unit gave them permission to do so, enabling the Moro farmers to construct houses anew and plant rubber trees, rice and corn.
In 2001, for unknown reasons, NPA guerrillas allegedly attacked the Moro residents in Sitio Lacobe, forcing Baclid and his group to leave the area.
Sometime in January 2005, it was the turn of Christian agrarian-reform beneficiaries to leave the area owingto threats and harassments by armed groups identified with the MILF.
It was alleged that some members of the MILF, who sympathize with the cause of the Baclid’s clan, were out to reclaim the land belonging to the Moro farmers.
A series of dialogues organized by the DAR and the local government were held to find a solution to the conflict, but to no avail. One of the dialogues was even participated in by then-Party-list Rep. Joel Virador of Bayan Muna and MILF Spokesman Eid Kabalu.
Later in 2007 an ambush in Sitio Lacobe resulted in the death of a certain Salem and a member of the Baclid family.
A breakthrough occurred in January last year, when both the Baclid group and the Christian ARBs agreed to meet separately with Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer (Paro) Marion Abella through the intervention of Edriz Gandalibo, appointed deputy governor for Muslim Affairs by Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, and Pastor Estrella and Reynulfo La Paz of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas-Cotabato.
During the consultations, Abella mapped out lots of the contested area in Sitio Lacobe and identified beneficiaries from both the Baclid group and the Christian ARBs.
This effort further gained ground in the later part of the month when Governor Taliño-Mendoza called for a province-wide consultation-meeting for all land-related conflicts in the province.
Apprised of breakthroughs in the Lacobe band conflict, she promised support for the negotiations and vowed to help finance the survey cost in the contested area, if necessary.
On August 3, 2011, the local government of Makilala formally endorsed the issue to the DAR for intervention and speedy resolution.
With Reyes’s orders, DAR Regional Director Nasser Musali and Abella stepped up their coordination efforts with the provincial government and reached out to the conflicting parties through the help of influential groups to forge a peace agreement between the feuding groups of farmer-beneficiaries.
On January 31 delos Reyes stood witness as the DAR formally sowed the seeds of peace and development for the farmers of Sitio Lacobe through a Peace Covenant signed by the two groups.
The DAR offered a long line of development projects that will be laid down to help the community.
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