The Rape And Destruction Of A Rice Granary

The following note and accompanying video was posted by one Noel Esquela on Facebook! I am re-posting this here for everyone to read and watch how Villar employed dubious schemes to acquire land covered by Land Reform to transform them into one of his housing projects!




VILLAR: THE REAL STORY OF SAVANNAH SUBDIVISION
Savannah Subdivision is Villar’s flagship in Pavia and Oton, Iloilo. This is the stage where the story unfolds, and provides damning evidence against Villar as a shrewd businessman who employs devious and illegal methods to accomplish his objectives, a politician who doesn’t hesitate to use his clout to compel government regulators to close their eyes and allow him to willfully violate the law.

It began in 1994 when Villar started scouting for an area where to put up the project. Villar saw the lands in Barangays Jibao-an in Pavia, Abilay Norte and Pulo Maestra Vita in Oton, as an ideal location. The wide land area sat close to the national highway leading to Iloilo City. The cost of the lands was dirt-cheap compared to potential locations within the city. From the real estate developers’ point of view, it was the dream place for a housing development.

There was just one catch: the lands were covered by agrarian reform, and these were classified as first-class irrigated rice lands. This fact alone will trigger alarm bells in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), which has the mandate to regulate the conversion of agricultural lands to other purposes. As then DAR regional director Elmo Banares said, such lands are categorized as “non-negotiable”. These lands are ineligible for conversion.