MARAMAG, Bukidnon - Farmers and lumads are demanding a resurvey of Central Mindanao University's claimed area here, parts of which are being leased allegedly by a syndicate whose members include university president Dr. Jaime Gellor.

Based on a 1990 congressional inquiry report, the university could derive some P3 million from the areas leased. But farmers currently cultivating some of the areas have ceased paying rent. Payments were previously remitted to a group they call "shadow government" which refused to issue official receipts.

Aside from CMU president Gellor, affidavit point to an ex-military personnel Randy Calma and former human rights activist Dr. Florencio Cui of the Bukidnon State College in Malaybalay as members of the "shadow government."

Dr. Cui admitted having organized an armed farmers group in the area. Called the Poor and Landless Tillers in CMU (Platicmu), the group is taunting those who have discontinued paying rentals, other farmers said.

Vicente Paragas, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) last approved the re-survey after a goup of lumads complained that the university continues to prevent them from occupying their ancestral lands.

Proclamation

CMU was granted by then President Carlos Garcia a total area of 3,080 hectares through Proclamation No. 478. A cadastral survey revealed that CMU had occupied more than what was granted. A 1992 Supreme Court en banc ruling set aside the excess of 321 hectares as tribal reservation.

But CMU officials would not categorically state where the area is. The reservation, they said, is a place called Kibalagon, said to be a watershed which the university retained for irrigation purposes.

Instead, a lowland area was set aside as reservation. The area swapped was sold by the lumads, claimed Gellor. Most of the buyers were faculty and staff of the university, he added.

The law, under normal circumstances, prohibits the parceling or sale of tribal reservations. University officials still have to present documents to support the swap or sale of the reservation.

The lumads headed by Bae Estrella Llacuna denied there was any legal sale of the property. The tribe held its grounds despite four successive demolitions led by vice-president Mardonio Lao and Gellor himself from the last week of January to the first week of February. A 6-month baby died in the aftermath.

Armed Platicmu members were among the demolition crew.

Income threatened

The campaign to drive away the lumads is now opening a can of worms. The areas claimed by them had been leased allegedly by the "shadow government." Returning the lands to the lumads, it appears, would mean lesser income from shady deals.

Other farmers here are consistently threatened with evictions. One died and four others were wounded when they resisted a demolition attempt in 1989. The last came July 6 last year when 15 fully-armed men attempted to drive them out.

"Harassment stopped when we threatened to expose them," the farmers said, referring to the "shadow government."

The revenue for the "shadow government" decreased beginning 1995. Two farmer organizations - the Bukidnon Free Farmers and Laborers Organization (Buffalo) and Tried Agri-Movers Association of Rural Active Workers (Tamaraw) - ceased paying their dues when demands for official receipts remained unheeded. Their combined area is approximately 400 hectares.

Affidavits shown to the Inquirer indicate that aside from the "goodwill money," Dr. Cui and Calma collected nearly P200,000 from April 1994 to December 1995. There were times when Gellor was alleged to have personally collected some amounts, including goats.

Secret deals

The farmers were allowed to cultivate the lands by virtue of an S.O.P. or what they refer to as "Secret Offer of the President". The deal, alleged to have been personally opened by Gellor via a gentlemen's agreement," was for the farmers to pay an initial amount of P1,500 per hectare for titling. Six sacks of palay per hectare were extracted per harvest.

The farmers attest that several meetings with them were held at the president's office in the presence of Cui and Calma. In one of these meetings, they complained that Cui was exacting 30 per cent of the gross harvest.

"That's not true, I was only asking for 10 per cent," the farmers quoted Gellor during one of the meetings.

The total land area leased reportedly exceeds 1,000 hectares. Bae Estrella's ancestral land claim is 916 hectares. A 1994 order for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to survey the are remained unimplemented.

One of the leaseholders is Sto. Rosario Farms managed by the wife of provincial board member Camilo Pepito.

Pepito claims their 250-hectare area is covered by a memorandum of agreement.

Payment

He said an initial payment of P150,000 was made. "The receipt is there somewhere," Pepito responded when asked by the Inquirer to show proof of payment.

Farmer Joselito Hermoso said the decrease in revenue derived from the S.O.P. led to the formation of "commando security forces" out of Platicmu in 1995.

Hermoso was among the 12 people trained by ex-military man Randy Calma. The "commandoes" later met Cui and Gellor at the former's residence in Malaybalay.

"Are these my soldiers?" Hermoso quoted Gellor as asking Cui.

Gellor was alleged to have proposed a plan then: for some of the commandoes to hostage in the university gym some faculty members and students while the others blow-up all bridges leading to CMU.

They were to demand the release of the lands and would start liquidating the hostages until their demands were met.

Hermoso said he was issued a homemade shotgun.

"You hit first my enemies in the faculty," Hermoso quoted Gellor as ordering his men.

The plan did not push through for unexplained reasons, Hermoso said. Instead, he said they were ordered to create cracks among the organizations which have discontinued paying their dues to the "shadow government."

Hermoso later rejoined Buffalo and admits to be on the run. He is among those issued warrants of arrests for cases filed by CMU against their organizations.

Lumads and farmers say Platicmu has in its arsenal, among others, an M-79 launcher, carbine, garand and shotgun rifles.

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MARAMAG, Bukidnon - "I'll be the last to prejudice the interest of the lumads and poor farmers," said Jaime Gellor, Central Mindanao State University (CMU) poresident.

Gellor boasts of being a graft buster, having been assigned by three secretaries of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports to several state institutions, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines included, to combat graft and corruption.

"How could people accuse me (of corruption)?" he asked.

Gellor denied all the accusations hurled at him by some quarters in the university, the lumads and farmers. "Those are fabrications to discredit me and my family," he said.

An October 7, 1996 report by the regional Commission on Audit (COA) cleared Gellor of the farmers' allegations he collected rent for the lands. The report said "there is no sufficient evidence" linking him to the land scam.

Several farmers charge that the audit made "was not exhaustive." They also say Gellor often boasts of his "connections" in Malacanang.

The COA recommended that Gellor "should demand from Dr. Florencio Cui all money received," and that the university chief "may file both administrative and criminal cases for having been imputed (by Cui) to an abhorrent act."

Confront, rebuke

Gellor did not heed the COA's recommendations. He said he merely "confronted and rebuked Cui."

Cui and Gellor are both residents of Malaybalay, Bukidnon and belong to the same civic club.

Cui said it was Gellor who took him in as physician of the Bukidnon State Colege.

Cui admits having helped organized Platicmu whose purpose, he adds, is "to attempt to recover the lands taken away by Buffalo members."

A former chair of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates in the province, Cui said he once served as the chief negotiating panel for Buffalo.

The physician does not deny that some members of Platicmu are armed, the weapons supplied by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Calilangan, this province.

Former military personnel Randy Calma comes from the same place and brought in a number of Moro people to join the camp, Cui said.

"We have guns to protect ourselves," Cui admitted, claiming that other farmers are also armed.

"I've never asked for a grain of palay," the physician countered, saying the farmers still owe him some amount for medicines taken.

'Gratitude"

He argued that the amount being given to Gellor is "an expression of gratitude" from the farmers who are allowed to cultivate in the area.

Cui blames the farmers for "corrupting" Gellor and praised the university chief "for allowing Platicmu members to cultivate 15 hectares. I personally told Gellor that his act will be a bonus in heaven."

Attempts to reach Calma, the alleged "liaison officer" of the "shadow government" failed.

The violent confrontations between the lumads and CMU would have easily ended with a resurvey of the school's properties. Requests from the tribe and other groups were made several years back but CMU did not heed them.

The lumads are pinning their hope on the commitment recently made by Vicente Paragas, regional executive director of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to conduct the resurvey soon.

Until this is made to finally determine the tribe's reservation and other claims, demolitions, which may turn violent and bloody, will continue to haunt the settlers.

The Philippine Associatin for Intercultural Development has established in its research papers that the tribe occupied the area since the 1850s. They were interrupted by war, the advent of government projects and demolitions when Gellor assumed the CMU presidency in 1993.

The farmers are willing to pay rent "so long as it is receipted by by the CMU, not the shadow government."

They have won the land tenureship against CMU in 1990.

SC decision

The Supreme Court reversed the rulings of the lower courts and decided in favor of the university. It made no reference to the congressional report which stated that the lands leased had "ceased to be for educational purposes," and that the lease program itself is "anti-thesis to the implied intent of a one-fund policy of the constitution."

The law requires that appropriations for state universities should come solely from Congress.

Until the tribal reservation has been finally located and amicable arrangements with the farmers are made, tension is expected to continue to reign here.

The farmers say they remain on alert and are ready to confront even armed demolition crew. "Our only wish is to survive, to eat three times a day and send the kids to school," the farmers said.

So also with Bae Estrella's group. "We've already lost three lives in the aftermath of the demolitions ordered by Dr. Gellor beginning 1993," she said.

She said she fears that the next demolition attempt "may be bloody owing to the anger generated by the baby's death last February 14."

"The prevailing situation calls for the immediate resurvey by DENR or any entity for that matter," Datu Angelito Omos said.

"It has to be done the soonest possible," he said.

Until the resurvey is done, the lumads and farmers will continue to contend with the "commando security force" of the shadow government which, they say, "continue to keep the loot for themselves."

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MARAMAG, Bukidnon - Congress is set to investigate the alleged involvement of Central Mindanao University (CMU) officials in a syndicate that illegally collects rent from university lands and drives away farmers who resist its operations.

The CMU officials, however, sued farmers for allegedly squatting. The farmers now face arrest even as Congress still has to start its investigation.

Representatives Jose Zubiri (Lakas, Bukidnon) and Gregorio Andolana (Lakas, North Cotabato) filed last Wednesday resolution no. 1115 directing the committees on national cultural communities and civil, political and human rights to look into the ancestral domain claims of the Talaandig Tribal Council Association and the alleged human rights violations committed against its members.

Just as the two congressmen filed the resolution, police here are set to arrest lumad leaders Estrella Llacuna and her husband Nicasion, Jesus Dogongan, Nicanor and Nicodemo Galarosa, Jesus Sayante, Narciso Ego, Norberto Ragandang, and Loloy Sali-ot for alleged squatting.

Charges were also filed by the CMU officials to take away from the lumads about 321 hectares of land the CMU claims to belong to the university but which the lumads claim to be their ancestral land.

Dr. Mardonio Lao, CMU vice president for administration, told the Inquirer university officials sued the lumads allegedly because they illegally occupied the contested area.

The lumads occupied the area they believed was their tribal reservation last January 31 but were driven away by demolition crews led by Lao and CMU president Jaime Gellor.

Lao said the criminal case was filed last February 17 at the Municipal Circuit Trial Court here and the civil case before the office of the Solicitor General.

Estrella Llacuna, one of those sued for alleged squatting, sent President Ramos a letter last January 21 urging his intercession over the land dispute, telling the president that CMU officials headed by Gellor have been terrorizing the lumads.

She urged Mr. Ramos to order Gellor to stop harassing and intimidating occupants of the land until the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) shall have resolved the dispute.

The lumads claim ownership over 321 hectares which the Supreme Court declared as a tribal reservation in 1992.

CMU officials, however, insist that the 321 hectares have been distributed to lumads in the early 1950s.

Fr. Felizardo Tibayan, CMU parish priest, has castigated CMU officials for violating human rights.

"These people (lumads) deserve respect, they should not be treated like criminals," the priest said.

He urged CMU officials to "apply what you've been teaching in the classroom."

"These officials are hypocrites. They keep on teaching the value of human dignity but what they have done to the natives are a clear contrast to what they are teaching in the classroom," Tibayan told the Inquirer.

Tibayan said he will file charges against CMU officials before the Commission on Human Rights.

With a report from Hernan P. dela Cruz, PDI Mindnao Bureau