A local farmers’ organization is calling on President Rodrigo Duterte to conduct “a real EDSA” and formally turn over 5,000 hectares of Negros Occidental property currently owned by Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. (ECJ).

In a press release, they noted certificates of land ownership award (CLOA) have already been issued but the said land has yet to be turned over.

“The EDSA that we pushed and longed for didn’t become a reality [for] the vast tracts of land we [have] been tilling for decades,” explained CLOA Holders and Farm Workers Association-Task Force Mapalad President Noel Magan. “Cojuangco remains the lord of these landholdings.”

The organization then called on Duterte to “make EDSA happen in these haciendas.”

According to Magan, the land is home to 12 contiguous haciendas, covering 4,654 hectares, and stretching across several localities including Bago City, La Carlota City, La Castellana, Isabela, Hinigaran, Murcia, San Enrique, Himamaylan, and Pontevedra.

The group also cited RA 6657, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988, which they say mandates the Department of Agrarian Reform to distribute private landholdings of over 50 hectares to landless farmers.

“Despite the law, Cojuangco remained the owner of these commercial landholdings,” the group’s statement noted.

Magan also offered a reminder to the president, stating, “We will not forget what you said in May 2016 immediately after you won the presidency.”

“You said, ‘I despise oligarchs (because) they get the fat out of the land,’” he explained. “In August of the same year, you promised that you would destroy the clutches of monster oligarchs in our country.”

The group leader went on to refer to Cojuangco as a “stubborn oligarch” and declared, “Please end our misery by ending Cojuangco’s reign!”/WDJ