Landholdings that have been previously offered for distribution under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, through the voluntary offer to sell and voluntary land transfer schemes may no longer be distributed, after all, as landowners begin withdrawing their offers, Task Force Mapalad said in a press release yesterday.

TFM president Jose Rodito Angeles, in the press release, said this was confirmed by officials of the Department of Agrarian Reform in a hearing Tuesday by the House committee on agrarian reform to determine the status of CARP implementation.

Angeles said DAR Undersecretaries Narciso Nieto and Renato Herrera admitted during questioning by the committee led by Apayao Rep. Elias Bulut Jr. that some landowners have indeed withdrawn their VOS and VLT landholdings from CARP. The officials, however, failed to cite the areas where the withdrawals occurred, prompting the House committee to order them to submit a report, he said.

San Miguel to sell  
$830M beer assets

MANILA - San Miguel Corp. said yesterday it is spinning off $830.6 million worth of brewing assets as it pursues a radical shift into new lines of business.

The board of San Miguel Corp, one of the Philippines' largest companies, approved the sale of its domestic beer brands, related intellectual property rights, and real estate used in the brewing business, it said.

Its San Miguel Brewery Inc. unit bought the brands for P32 billion  and land worth P6.8 billion, the listed companies said in separate statements.

Sugar hearing sought

Sugar leader Luis Mirasol Jr. yesterday asked Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco to direct the holding of a public hearing on the sugar allocations of the Sugar Regulatory Administration.

Executive Order No. 18 directs the SRA to allocate and balance supply and demand to levels and prices that are profitable to the producers and fair to the consumer, he said.

It has been the practice of the SRA to consult the Philippine Sugar Alliance composed of the four federations and trader-millers in determining the different sugar allocations. This is prejudicial to the 24 percent non-affiliated sugar producers and the 18 percent non-affiliated millers, he said.

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