P42-MILLION PAYMENT

The ROD, however, did not cancel the land's original title named under Rivulet Agro-Industrial Corporation because the ROD wanted to include the name of the President’s husband in the P42.31-million certificate of cash deposit (COD) representing payment to Rivulet. 

The multimillion-peso certificate would serve as compensation to Rivulet after the DAR takes away the hacienda from the firm and places the property under the CARP.

	HELP US GET THE LAND. Negros farmers picket at the LRA office in Quezon City, urging the government to hasten the distribution of the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan. [photo by AR Sabangan]

Records from the Office of the Treasurer of Isabela town show that Jose Miguel Arroyo bought the hacienda from Rivulet through a public auction on April 8, 1994. At the time, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was still a senator.

Isabela treasurer Araceli Garcia certified that the "delinquent property declared in the name of Rivulet was "sold...to Mr. Jose Miguel Arroyo" for only P176,722.89, which was actually the total amount of property taxes and penalties that Rivulet failed to pay for the hacienda in 1989, and from 1990 to 1993. The property’s value during the time of the auction was P1.04 million.

The sale became final on March 27, 1996 when Enrique Pinongan, provincial treasurer of Negros Occidental, issued a "Final Bill of Sale" that said Bacan "was sold to Mr. Jose Miguel Arroyo...married to Gloria M. Arroyo."

This would then help explain why, in a letter dated Nov. 14, 2008, lawyer Romulo E. Gonzaga of the ROD in Negros Occidental, had refused to cancel Rivulet's title. Instead, he advised provincial agrarian reform officer (PARO) Teresita Depeñoso to "effect the correction" of the COD issued by the Land Bank of the Philippines by including the First Gentleman's name as landowner.

Gonzaga also said that should the DAR fail to comply with the correction of the COD, the department's request to transfer Rivulet's title to the Republic of the Philippines "will be denied, thus we will return all the documents to your end."

MIKE WINS AUCTION

Returning the documents that contain the farmers' claim over the hacienda would further delay the award of Bacan to its tillers. The farmers thus went posthaste to Manila to convince the LRA to intervene and cancel the property’s original title.

Interestingly, the First Gentleman has denied that he has taken control over the hacienda, even though he admits being the winning bidder in the 1994 auction of the land.

In his Declaration of Trust dated October 16, 2007, Mike Arroyo stated that he only bought the hacienda as trustee and that it remains "the exclusive property of Rivulet...." He also gave his consent “to any sale, transfer, assignment, encumbrance, or other charge which Rivulet... might transact over the said property, as well as to any request or application which Rivulet... might make pursuant thereto, with relevant government or private entities."

The First Gentleman’s declaration, combined with the ROD’s most recent stance, have had farmers in Negros scratching their heads. Asks Jose Rodito Angeles, president of peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM) and a farm worker in Hacienda Grande, another property in Negros Occidental owned by the Arroyo family: "The First Gentleman himself said that he doesn't own the hacienda. Why would the ROD include him in the cash deposit? Is this another ploy to impede CARP implementation in Bacan?"

NAME MIKE A PAYEE

Celis also wonders aloud, "Dati ministerial lang ang trabaho ng ROD sa pagkansela ng titulo. Pero ngayon, parang mas nakikialam na sila. Pinipilit nilang isali si First Gentleman sa babayaran, pero siya na mismo ang nagsabi na hindi sa kanya ang lupa (The ROD, which before only had a ministerial duty in the cancellation of titles, has intervened on the issue, insisting that the First Gentleman should also be named as payee when he had already conceded his right over the land to Rivulet)."

In fact, the First Gentleman’s declaration had come six years after at least two provincial agrarian reform officers sent him letters that said the DAR could not process his brother Iggy’s offer to place Bacan under CARP because official documents indicated that the younger Arroyo was merely the hacienda’s administrator.

In 2001, Iggy Arroyo, on behalf of Rivulet, had offered to put Bacan under CARP in exchange for a P45-million compensation. But the DAR turned down the proposal, arguing that the only one who could make such an offer was the hacienda’s owner, who it said was Mike Arroyo, not Iggy.

On October 8, 2001, PARO Alexis Arsenal wrote to the First Gentleman, informing him that the DAR could not process the offer made by his brother because the application for voluntary offer to sell (VOS) filed by Iggy Arroyo "has no attached special power of attorney (for him) to sign and dispose the property under CARP executed/issued by the landowner, Atty. Jose Miguel Arroyo."

Arsenal also appealed to the First Gentleman to help expedite placing the hacienda under CARP by either signing a new VOS application or issuing a special power of attorney for Iggy Arroyo.