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Cojuangcos to Face NPA Court
President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo’s labor secretary, Patricia Sto. Tomas, and members of
the Cojuangco clan – owners of the sprawling Hacienda Luisita – may find
themselves in trouble. More than a month after hundreds of soldiers and
policemen violently dispersed a picket of the hacienda’s workers resulting
in the massacre of seven striking workers, the NPA’s revolutionary justice
is after them.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
Relatives and comrades of slain
Hacienda Luisita strikers offer
bullets in their memory, symbolizing their pledge to seek justice
Photo by Dabet Castañeda
CARANGLAN, Nueva
Ecija – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s labor secretary, Patricia Sto.
Tomas, and members of the Cojuangco clan – owners of the sprawling
Hacienda Luisita – may find themselves in trouble. It looks like that more
than a month after hundreds of soldiers and policemen violently dispersed
a picket of the hacienda’s workers resulting in the massacre of seven
striking workers, revolutionary justice is after them.
In a clandestine
press conference last Dec. 22, Jose Agtalon of the Josefino Corpuz Command
(JCC, the New People’s Army Central Luzon Operational Command), told
reporters that the JCC is gathering evidence to the possible
accountability of some members of the Cojuangco clan in the Nov. 16
massacre at Hacienda Luisita.
Sto. Tomas, secretary
of the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), is likewise being
investigated, Agtalon added.
He said the labor
secretary’s order on Nov. 10 to assume jurisdiction (AJ) over the labor
dispute between the workers of the Central Azucarrera de Tarlac (CAT), the
hacienda’s sugar mill, and the Nov. 15 order to deputize the Philippine
National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to
enforce her order was instrumental to the picket line carnage.
“She may be found
politically liable in connivance with the Cojuangcos and the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration,” Agtalon told reporters.
Warrants of arrest
As soon as evidences
warrant a case against them, the NPA-Central Luzon spokesperson, said the
Cojuangcos and Sto. Tomas will face the “People’s Court.” If this
prospers, Agtalon said, they will be issued warrants of arrest.
Agtalon admitted
however that enforcing the warrants may turn out to be “hard” because the
Cojuangcos remain to be one of the most influential and powerful clans in
the country. The family also used to have its own private army - the
“yellow army” composed of at least 300 Israeli- and British-trained
personnel, he said.
The Cojuangcos own
the 4,415-hectare Hacienda Luisita, Inc. sugar plantation that adjoins
Tarlac City and Concepcion town, some 120 kms north of Manila. They also
own and operate the CAT that stands on the middle of the vast estate.
The Cojuangcos’ more
than 5,000 employees from both the mill and the plantation complain of
unfair labor practice and unjust wages forcing them to go on a
simultaneous strike on Nov. 6. Topping their demands is land distribution.
Since Day 1 of the
strike, there were several attempts to break the picket line, Agtalon also
said. The police and military build up showed that the Cojuangcos, in
connivance with Sto. Tomas, were out to bring the picket into a violent
dispersal, Agtalon said. The dispersal led to the massacre as well as
injuries to several of the striking workers, he added. Many were also
arrested.
Agtalon also said
that initial investigations by the JCC reveal that the volley of gunfire
did not come from the strikers while the positions of the snipers inside
the sugar mill central established the military’s “intention to kill.”
NBI
probe
Sources say these
observations match the initial investigation of the National Bureau of
Investigation (NBI) in Tarlac. An NBI official who requested anonymity
said that several slugs found embedded on the walls of the sugar central
show that the shots came from snipers positioned inside the CAT’s
premises.
Agtalon said that
with the massacre and the killing of one of the witnesses, Marcelino
Beltran, on Dec. 8 attest that the land-owning clan is “an enemy of the
people.” Beltran, a retired soldier, was chair of the Alyansa ng mga
Magbubukid sa Tarlac and vice chair of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa
Gitnang Luzon (Peasant Alliance in Central Luzon).
As a result, Agtalon
said, Hacienda Luisita will be confiscated from the Cojuangcos as soon as
the revolutionary movement assumes political power and will be turned over
to the plantation workers.
Tactical offensives
As combatants,
Agtalon said, the AFP particularly the 69th Infantry Battalion
of the Philippine Army (IBPA) of the Northern Luzon Command (NLC) that
served as the operators of the Nov. 16 massacre, are immediate target of
the NPA’s tactical offensives.
After the carnage, he
revealed, the NPA-JCC launched six successive operations in six provinces
of CL – Bulacan on Nov. 30; Zambales on Dec. 9; Pampanga on Dec. 12;
Bataan on Dec. 13; Tarlac on Dec. 14; and Nueva Ecija on Dec. 15.
The NPA-JCC also
reported that it captured 34 weapons from these operations.
No civilian
casualties were reported while the AFP lost at least 18 men, Agtalon said. The NPA-JCC accounted no deaths
from their side.
Apart from its duty
to carry on tactical offensives to weaken reactionary forces and
accumulate arms for the revolutionary movement, Agtalon said, the recent
NPA operations in Central Luzon are their answer to the popular uproar to
give justice to the victims of the violence committed against the Hacienda
Luisita strikers and their supporters.
The Cojuangcos,
through Rep. Benigno Aquino III, blamed NPA infiltrators for the massacre.
They also said that leftists have been fomenting unrest at Hacienda
Luisita. Police authorities on the other hand said it was the strikers who
fired first.
The carnage is now
the subject of Senate and House investigations. Bulatlat
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