BECAUSE THEY head key agencies, Defensor and Braganza are attracting more scrutiny than the rest of the Boys. Both say they consider the issues their respective agencies address as their very advocacies—their higher calling, so to speak. Braganza says he is not new to the agrarian reform law, and had pushed for agrarian reform since his college days. For his part, Defensor, even as a Quezon City councilor, authored ordinances on socialized land and housing for the poor in his district. The local bills he filed in the Lower House were able to facilitate the awarding of about 10 hectares of public land to 15,000 beneficiaries.

Somehow, though, trouble has been hounding Braganza and Defensor since they joined the Cabinet, with the former in more dire straits. Braganza had been in office barely two months when he invited the ire of farmers' groups that said he had "no political will" to implement agrarian reform. They have since clamored for his resignation as DAR chief.

"It seems that his greatest achievement is to unify the peasant movement against him," remarks Rocamora, pointing out that farmers' groups had been at odds in their view of Braganza's predecessor, Horacio Morales, once a stalwart in the progressive movement.

Agrarian reform beneficiaries from Negros Occidental belonging to the national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM) first issued the call for Braganza to step down in April following his failure to have them installed—as DAR itself scheduled—in four haciendas in La Castellana town. The landholdings comprise 132 hectares owned by wealthy families.

The DAR secretary backed out of the planned installation at the last minute at the sight of security guards deployed by the Hacienda Espinos landowners to block the farmers from occupying the area. This was despite the assistance he had from the police and military. Braganza now says he was only trying to "avert bloodshed" since there were other farmers who did not belong to TFM and whose side had not been heard.

That afternoon, Braganza had to rush back to Manila to attend to his other function as a member of the government's peace negotiating panel, in time for the long-awaited release of Army Maj. Noel Buan, who had been a captive of the New People's Army since 1999. In his haste, Braganza also failed to declare Negros Occidental a priority area in agrarian reform implementation, which he had set out to do after consultations with TFM farmers.

By TFM's reckoning, Braganza's turnaround only exposed him as weak in the face of resisting landowners, despite his pronouncements that "no one, not even Danding Cojuangco, could circumvent the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)."

Of late, another national farmers federation, the Ugnayan ng Nagkakaisang Organisasyon sa Kanayunan (UNORKA) has been echoing TFM's negative sentiments about Braganza as DAR chief. This was borne by the group's unpleasant experience with the DAR leadership over the resolution of more than 500 land cases involving 200,000 hectares of public land and private landed estates across the country.

Braganza, farmers say, has the habit of not coming to meetings he himself had set, sending instead his undersecretaries to face them. And when they finally got the chance to talk with him on August 15, UNORKA treasurer Isabileta Escovilla was surprised to witness Braganza's flippant attitude toward farmers.

"That's when I saw his rather rude treatment of farmers," she says. "When he came, he just suddenly sat down. Then he said something like, 'Smile, why don't you want to smile?' After which he stood up again. Just when you were recounting your problems, he'd go out of the room. He'd be in and out, instead of just sitting still so he could listen."

In UNORKA's view, Braganza and his DAR team suffer from misplaced self-importance and act as if only they can effect reforms. Observes UNORKA secretary general Evangeline Mendoza: "Braganza is ignoring the tradition in the DAR of the positive interaction between reform-minded state actors and the organized peasantry and their NGO allies by not giving importance to us."

As such, the DAR premises have begun to resemble a garrison, with padlocked gates and armed guards manning them to prevent the entry of protesting farmers, whom Braganza referred to as a "mob" for taking siege of his office. Ironically, Braganza declared an open-door policy back in February to mark the start of his administration so that farmers were again given access to the DAR central office.

IN RESPONSE to accusations that he has no political will, Braganza has challenged farmers to name even one powerful landowner whose landholdings his administration has not touched. "If you look at the owners of those landholdings we've already decided on, they're the 'Who's Who' of Philippine society," he says. "And I'm losing friends very, very fast in the performance of my duties."

But Task Force Mapalad insists that Braganza has yet to touch the 5,000-hectare estate of Cojuangco and 1,500-hectare Hacienda Carmenchika owned by heirs of another Marcos crony, Roberto Benedicto, both in Negros; and 2,000 hectares of lands in Maramag, Bukidnon owned by relatives of Vice President Teofisto Guingona. UNORKA likewise mentions cases of CARP implementation and pending agrarian reform cases involving Cojuangco property in Tarlac, Palawan, and Davao Oriental; the 258-hectare Asistio estate in Albay; 12,000 hectares of land in Bondoc Peninsula owned by Domingo Reyes; and some 5,300 hectares of Floirendo plantations in Davao del Norte.

Braganza says he does not interfere with the legal department about which cases it should prioritize. He also asserts that the real problem is that there are legal disputes not just between landowners and farmers but also among farmer-beneficiaries themselves. For instance, he says, the Cojuangco estates have been covered before, but portions of these haciendas cannot be distributed because of legal impediments.

Such tack Rocamora deems as very legalistic. He argues, "If you approach agrarian reform legalistically, it's a formula for not doing anything because the law provides ample opportunities for landlords to use the legal system to stop agrarian reform."

To be fair, anyone assigned to head a department that reflects the very conflicts within Philippine society is bound to be at the receiving end of disparaging criticism. Braganza has also inherited the unenviable task of acquiring and distributing the remaining 1.2 million hectares of private agricultural land. These are the plantations and haciendas, which are the most contentious types of land under CARP owing to resistance from landowners. And he has to pursue the program's mandate, including a land-distribution target of 100,000 hectares a year set by Arroyo to guarantee his security of tenure, with a dwindling budget now pegged at P2.85 billion.

As of mid-November, DAR had only acquired and distributed 50 percent of the land it targeted for redistribution this year. Braganza remains unfazed though, noting that he has even achieved so much with a budget that is "good for only 72,000 hectares." He also says, "I can't solve centuries-old land problems in four months! Maybe they should give me four centuries!"

But some blame DAR's dismal performance partly to Braganza's preoccupation with the peace process, which they say makes him unable to pay enough attention to agrarian reform. After taking his oath of office in February, Braganza had to join the GRP panel in the Netherlands for more than three weeks for the resumption of the peace talks with the National Democratic Front before he even paid attention to agrarian matters.

Braganza, however, sees no conflict between his work at DAR and his role as peace negotiator. He says that by appointing him to the latter, the Arroyo administration was only recognizing that the issues of peace, social unrest, and social justice are agrarian-related.

Of the Spice Boys, only Braganza and Defensor were weaned on radical politics in their college days. But as Rocamora notes, "Ang background ng pagka-aktibista naman double-edged yan. At the minimum, you learn certain skills. But what use you put your skills to is what determines the character of your political career. There are a lot of former activists who are now doing really ugly things."