MANNY VILLAR LAND GRAB: NORZAGARAY, BULACAN “THE END OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE?”
globalbalita.com Norzagaray, Bulacan 23 FEBRUARY 2010 7 COMMENTS by Lito Banayo from MALAYA Norzagaray is a small town in the northeastern fringes of Bulacan, in the foothills of the Sierra Madre. It is bounded on the north by the town of Angat, and to its south is San Jose del Monte City, now a bustling center where once the squatters ejected from Intramuros resided. The foothills of the Sierra Madre where the provinces of Rizal, Quezon and Bulacan straddle are ancestral home to the Dumagats, indigenous Filipinos who used to subsist on hunting and slash-and-burn farming, otherwise called kaingin. But because of population explosion and its proximity to Quezon City, Norzagaray lands have become a bit more valuable. It certainly would make a good venue for low-cost housing. Last Thursday, some 47 farmers, some of them still pure Dumagats, others of inter-married stock, trooped to a small restaurant at the vicinity of Quezon City Hall, and were met by a few reporters who listened to their story. They were accompanied by a lawyer and a spokesperson, a certain Mrs. Tecson, who showed documents to prove their case. This is their story: They have cultivated some 480 hectares of land in Norzagaray since the late fifties. Some of them, the Dumagats particularly, had forebears who were there since the times when the fair-skinned invaded these islands. In 1960, they went to the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources and applied for free patent to the lands they had …