Lamitan now has model communal farm of agrarian reform beneficiaries

COTABATO CITY --- The 1,127-hectare agricultural estate inLamitan City of former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile is now a boomingcommunal enterprise agrarian reform beneficiaries are so proud about.The land was subdivided and awarded to 375 Muslim and Christian farmworkers in 1994 through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.The Enrile-owned Cocoland Development Corporation, covering arablelands in Limook area in Lamitan City, is now a cooperative run by farmers propagating coffee, orchard, rubber and bananas.Some members of the cooperative are also producing rice from smallpatches of rain-fed fields inside the communal plantation.Enrile acquired ownership of the plantation when he was defensesecretary during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos.Edilberto Martinez, manager of the Lamitan Agrarian ReformBeneficiaries Cooperative (Larbeco), said Saturday the productivity offarmers in the plantation have been improving since 2012 as a resultof the continuing socio-economic and infrastructure support from theLamitan City local government unit (LGU) and the agrarian reform and public works department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao(ARMM). We can now transport our farm products to the markets on time becausethe roads connecting the center of our farming operations to tradingsites have all been concreted and more roads are being concreted in adjacentbarangays where we do trading activities, he said.He said they are also optimistic of an upswing trend soon in their communal trading activities outside of the island province of Basilan with therecent completion by the ARMM regional government of a P150 million roll on, roll off seaport in Lamitan City’s nearby BarangayKulaybato.Lamitan City, which has 45 barangays, is the capital of Basilan, a component province of ARMM.The ARMM also covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, both in mainlandMindanao, and the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.Martinez said the tranquility in the surroundings of theircooperative farms is also one factor for their good harvests in the pastfour years. Our LGU and the ARMM government are not just helping us produce more, but are also both trying to connect us to the markets outside ofLamitan City, he said.Two senior members of Larbeco’s board of directors, Ibrahim Uto andAllan Pascua, separately told The STAR on Saturday that Muslim andChristian members of the cooperative are tolerant of one anotherother. We are separated only by non-irritant, acceptable religious differences and are bound cohesively by commonalities in our faiths, Uto said.Pascual said the calmness in the local communities is one reason whytechnicians from the ARMM’s agriculture and agrarian reformdepartments are not scared of visiting the Larbeco farmlandson periodic basis to extend technical assistance to farmers. We are frequently visited by people from the agriculture andagrarian reform departments of the ARMM government to check on ourneeds. They can come to Barangay Limook anytime because there is peacein the area, Pascual said.The mayor of Lamitan City, Rose Furigay, said the Larbeco is now a model cooperative, whose members are struggling to show to otherlocal communal farming blocs that rising from poverty and the effectsof armed conflicts can easily be achieved with right support fromgovernment agencies and other benefactors.Records obtained from the office of Chief Inspector Allan Benasing,head of the Lamitan City police force, indicated that there has neverbeen any heinous crime recorded in the Larbeco farmlands in the pastfive years. There were only some minor incidents there like quarrels amongfarmers intoxicated with liquor who reconciled immediately the next day. Just petty issues, Benasing said.Martinez said it was the massive infrastructure investments in Lamitan City by the executive department of ARMM in the past four years that helped boosttheir production.Furigay said the ARMM government had spent more than P1 billion forfarm-to-market roads, bridges, health facilities and schools inLamitan City during the period.The projects were implemented as joint programs of the Lamitan CityLGU, the office of ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and hissubordinate-engineers, Don Loong, chief of the regional public worksdepartment, and Soler Undug of the Basilan District EngineeringOffice.Uto said children of Larbeco member-farmers now have easy access to schools in nearby barangays as a result of the concreting of the roadscrisscrossing their villages.Benasing said there are positive indications that the farmingcommunities under Larbeco are now drug free too. When people are busy with their farm works and are productive, theywould not do anything bad that can upset their peaceful lives andderail their productivity, Benasing said.Martinez said they also feel so protected by the Department ofAgrarian Reform-ARMM and the Lamitan City LGU. That feeling of protection is something money cannot buy. With that we shall improve our cooperative into something like the `better farming cooperative’ in Basilan, Martinez said.