Documentary filmmaker Ditsi Carolino follows the struggles of farm workers of Hacienda Vicenta in La Castellana town in Negros Occidental who are fighting for their right to own land under the Philippines’ Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). They were promised in 2012 that they will each get about one hectare of land each. But in 2021, as their collective title was being processed, the Department of Agrarian Reform granted the application of the landowner for land use conversion.
This documentary received funding and production support from the Legal Education Advancement Program (LEAP), Legal Education Board (LEB), and UP Law Center.
The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) was granted permission for the first public release of the documentary.
read the investigative report
Farmers have died waiting: Malacañang reviews DAR’s flip flop on conversion of irrigated farmland
NEGROS OCCIDENTAL. Eden Entroduction sent to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) more than a dozen photos of the long stretch of cemented irrigation canal along the highway of Barangay Cabacungan in La Castellana, Negros Occidental. It is proof, she said, that the decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) approving the land…
In 2019, DAR created a committee to decide petitions to convert or exempt land from CARP
The Department of Agrarian Reform in March 2019 created the Land Use Cases Committee or LUCC to decide petitions to convert farmlands or exempt farmlands from the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.