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MANILA — In a historic convention of urban poor, peasant and labor leaders, Anakpawis, the largest partylist of marginalized sectors in the Philippines, tagged the issues of land distribution and still unresolved massacre of striking workers in Luisita as “flagship social justice problems” that presidentiables should seriously address now.

“As we affirm our bid to give the toiling masses a voice in the crowd of traditional politicians, we also affirm our struggle for genuine land reform and justice for farmers and farmworkers – in particular, our struggle in “Hacienda Luisita,” Anakpawis Representative Rafael “Paeng” Mariano said.

Contrary to the Cojuangcos’s claim, the problems in Hacienda Luisita constitute a glaring social justice issue that should be at the focus of the entire nation’s watchful eye. It is not propaganda but fact, said Rep. Mariano. “It is about the landlessness of those who till, injustices committed to those who toil, and massacre of those who fight for their basic rights.”

Speaking at the Anakpawis national convention in Quezon City, Rep. Mariano said Anakpawis will push for the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmers. The government has previously revoked the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) in Hacienda Luisita. This SDO has previously allowed the Cojuangcos to continue circumventing actual land distribution.

Meanwhile, Joselito Ustarez, vice-president of Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), said Anakpawis and other progressive groups will put pressure on courts to prosecute and speed up the prosecution of military units, especially its officials, who are reportedly behind the brutal massacre of seven striking workers in Hacienda Luisita in 2004.

Up to now, Ustarez said the public needs to know and oppose the fact that intensifying militarization continues in the 6,453-hectare Hacienda Luisita. Worse, it now appears that the massacre of the striking workers of the said Hacienda had encouraged more trade union rights repression.

When the strike at Luisita was crushed with the use of brute force and the labor department’s Assumption of Jurisdiction for “legal cover,” all other factories and agro-industrial lands in Central Luzon became just as militarized. The labor secretary’s power to issue assumption of jurisdiction is the license being used everywhere to justify the militarization of workplaces,” Ustarez said.

As such, for Anakpawis, Luisita is emblematic in the people’s struggle to revoke the labor secretary’s power to assume jurisdiction of labor disputes. “Assumption of Jurisdiction or AJ has served as a ‘shoot-to-kill order’ against workers all over the country. It has to be stopped.”

In its recent convention, Anakpawis united to pursue land and justice for Hacienda Luisita farmers and workers as it also officially declared its bid for seats in Congress in the 2010 elections. (Bulatlat.com)