Task Force Mapalad slammed in a statement yesterday Negros Occidental Gov. Joseph Marañon and said he has finally unveiled himself as a "pro-landlord and pro-murder" chief executive.

TFM was reacting to the call of Marañon for the Office of the President and the Department of Justice to immediately initiate an investigation into the serious complaints of Department of Agrarian Reform employees in Bacolod City on the alleged use of DAR funds for Task Force Mapalad.

This gives me more reason to believe that Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman does not consult local officials on agrarian reform concerns in Negros Occidental because he is already biased towards the TFM, Marañon had said.

In the past Marañon had been irked by Pangandaman's failure to consult him during his visits to Negros Occidental for the implementation of land reform in Hacienda Velez Malaga, La Castellana, involving TFM beneficiaries amid concern that violence would break out.

Numerous incidents of violence have erupted at Velez Malaga that have, so far, resulted in the death of three farmer beneficiaries this year.

Marañon said he was not pro-murder, that is precisely why he has always stressed the need to take measures to prevent violence.

"At least Governor Marañon has found the moral courage to honest about his feelings against land reform and Task Force Mapalad," TFM local organizer Jerry Cajilig said in a TFM press release.

Marañon yesterday said he did not ask for a probe on TFM, what I am asking for is an investigation of the DAR based on the complaints of its employees in the province.

I do not know why it is TFM that is answering for the DAR officials complained about, he said.

Cajilig called Marañon's statement "lamentable" but vowed that despite the statement of the governor, "we would not back down, not even an inch, from our advocacy and commitment to make sure that the Negros farmers should be given land due them under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program."

TFM-Negros spokesperson Edna Sobrecaray, on the other hand, said Marañon should even be held guilty of "dereliction of duty" and "ignorance" of the law because TFM is only "trying to make sure that CARP should be followed to the letter yet here we have a governor who does not want it to be seriously implemented."

In fact, despite the deaths of Pepito Santillan, Ely Tupas and Alejandro Garcesa, Marañon did not even make a public statement condemning the murders, the TFM statement said.

And the fact that Marañon does not agree to the full implementation of CARP, couching it in terms that it should be "restudied," this is proof positive that the governor "is not, does not and would not favor the breaking up of lands in Negros Occidental," Sobrecaray pointed out.

TFM said that, instead of calling on Malacañang to probe DAR funds allegedly used for TFM, Negros Occidental Gov. Joseph Marañon should instead initiate the conduct of an investigation into why farmer-beneficiaries are being killed but not one of the perpetrators of killings has been put to justice.

"If Gov. Marañon keeps on biting and listening to the lies peddled by pro-landlord DAR Negros employees, he may find himself in a very awkward and shameful position later on, because there is absolutely no truth to the allegation by DAR Negros employees that the DAR national office is playing favorites with TFM," TFM president Jose Rodito Angeles said.*

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