Peace has returned to Pindangan Estate in Alcala town, albeit temporarily, with the disbandment of the armed group harassing the residents, according to the police.

The Pangasinan police and the Philippine Army yesterday “neutralized” the armed goons which tried to wrest control over the 491-hectare estate that belonged to the government and which two contending groups fight over.
The several-hour long gunfight resulted in the death of two members of the “goons,” wounding of one and surrender of three.  Dead were Felipo Galleno and Rogelio Montero.But the goons’ alleged leader, retired Supt. Conrado Perigrino Jr, who resportedly was wounded during the firefight, was able to escape. There was no casualty on the side of government forces. 
 “Unless the ownership of the land has been resolved, the problem will always come back,” Supt. Noli Taliño, deputy provincial police director, said.

A resident of the Pindangan Estate, who requested not to be named, said the problem was far from over because “some leaders” of the armed group, are still in the area and are occupying village positions.
The police and the army patrolled the place after receiving reports about alleged presence of members of the New People’s Army there. It turned out that it was an “armed goons” which constructed a sort of a fort in the middle of the agricultural estate.
 But the resident said many persons which do not reside in the estate were regularly seen there and this instills fear in the residents. “We don’t know who they are and why they always go to the Pindangan.”
The resident said the armed goons are a “third force” in the fight over the Pindangan Estate. For more than 80 years now, the estate has been the subject of dispute between two groups of farmer tenants — Group 178 and Group 302, which have been fighting it out in the court and  before concerned government agencies.
The Pindangan Estate originally belonged to a certain Gonzales family but which a government bank foreclosed in the early 1990s. It has been a patrimonial property of the State since 1923.
The resident said the two groups go through legal means to own the estate, but two years ago, “the third force or the armed group” has been “recruiting” members of the two groups and harassing those who did not want to join it.
“For two years now, the residents were not able to plant in the hacienda because they were harassed by the armed goons,” the resident said.
If only the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was fast in processing the papers, the problem could have been solved long ago,” the resident added.