LAOAC–The protest over the idle dairy farm here heated up anew when some 50 farmers staged a protest rally at the abandoned complex in Barangay Maraboc Wednesday afternoon.

The protesters, led by Pluto Cabalteja, condemned the mismanagement of the dairy farm that was built in 2004 by government but later stopped operation and laid off its workers and farm workers.

The milk processing complex used to be teeming with over 600 milking cows when it started and was viewed as a model project in the province.

Cabalteja, a lawyer, said his group complained that despite reports in 2010 that the Fifth District’s share of P600 million from the tobacco excise fund was received by the then Rep. Mark Cojuangco ostensibly to sustain the project, the operation was shut down.

The farmers asked Mr. Cojuangco about the other P600 million or tobacco excise tax share of the district channeled through him.

One of the protesters, Divina Aquino Mangonon who was in her wheelchair, said her family owned the two hectare lot where the milk processing facility and was never paid by the government.

“We have filed a third party complaint seeking payment for the property,” Mangonon said as she pointed out that the property was titled in the name of her grandfather, Rafael Aquino. “All we ask is for the government to pay our land that it took over,” she added. (Leonardo Micua)

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