The residents of the BTL (Buffalo-Tamaraw-Limus) community in Maramag, Bukidnon were alarmed by the sudden arrival of police in their community on June 14. They were surprised when at least 42 vehicles carrying police officers, all armed with long firearms, parked one after another around noon that day. The police did not provide any reason when the community leader asked what they were doing there.
They were alarmed because just last March, the residents received a “notice to vacate” related to a “writ of demolition” issued against members of the BTL Multipurpose Cooperative and the Musuan Inhabitants’ Landless Farmers Association (MILFA).
The BTL community is located within the land claimed by Central Mindanao University in Musuan, Maramag. BTL is the union of three farmers’ organizations—Buffalo (Bukidnon Free Farmers and Agricultural Laborers Organization), Tamaraw (Triad Agricultural Manpower of Rural Active Workers), and Limus (Landless Tillers Inhabitants of Musuan). They have been cultivating the land for decades.
The BTL case is another proof of the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program’s (CARP) failure. In the 1980s, the farmers asserted that almost 2,400 hectares of agricultural land should be covered by the reform. In 1989, the Department of Agrarian Reform granted the farmers’ petition and ordered the distribution of 517 hectares to the beneficiaries. However, in 1992, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of CMU and cancelled the land ownership awards of the farmers.
The farmers continued their struggle in the following decades. They stood firm in the face of violence and repression from the university’s guards, soldiers, and police. One of the victims of violence was Leonardo Loable, who was shot by a CMU guard during a protest. Another was Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women local chapter member Veneranda ‘Didang’ Ginanao, who was killed by the 89th IB’s strafing in 2019, which also injured her husband and KASAMA-Bukidnon leader Reynaldo “Jun” Ginanao, and their son Christian.
In 2020, CMU signed a memorandum of agreement allowing the farmers to continue cultivating the area. Despite this, the university’s guards still relentlessly attempted to evict them from their farms in recent years.
