For the third time since the powerful Cojuangco clan acquired the vast sugar estate Hacienda Luisita in 1958, thousands of its farm hands are again facing the prospect of owning the land that is rightfully theirs. Will they finally hit this chance? Will the axe fall on the Cojuangcos this time?

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

Ben Pamposa, a sugar farm worker at Hacienda Luisita, was only 25 in 1968 when he was supposed to have been awarded a parcel of land in Hacienda Luisita, the 6,453-hectare sugar estate in Tarlac (120 kms from Manila).

That year the 10-year grace period as stipulated in the loan agreement between Jose Cojuangco, Sr. and the Central Bank of the Philippines and the Government Services Insurance System for the former to distribute and sell the land to farm workers at affordable terms had ended.  

Ten years later, the Cojuangco clan wrote the then Ministry of Agrarian Reform (MAR) that there were no tenants in the hacienda implying that there was no reason to distribute the land.

In 1980, the embattled Marcos administration filed a case against the Cojuangcos before the Manila Regional Trial Court. This was interpreted by political observers then as a punitive measure against Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, his chief political rival. Aquino, who would be assassinated in 1983, was married to Corazon Cojuangco, daughter of Jose Sr.

In 1985, the court ordered the Cojuangcos to transfer control of the hacienda to MAR, which would in turn distribute the land to the farm workers.

For the second time, farm workers, including Pamposa, had a chance to own the land.  But it all came to naught when the following year, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino took over the presidency after a people’s revolt that toppled the Marcos dictatorship. 

In 1989, the hacienda was placed under the Stock Distribution Plan (SDP). The SDP is a scheme under Cojuangco-Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that allows landowners, who run their farms as corporations, to distribute shares of stock to farm workers in lieu of actual land transfer.

Thus the birth of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI). Immediately, the Cojuangcos claimed that the agriculture land had been reduced to 4,443 has. The remaining lots, they asserted, were converted to non-agricultural uses.

In paper, the SDP made the farm workers co-owners of the hacienda . But in reality, the farm workers suffered from low pay equivalent to P9.50 per week, reduced man days, job losses and eviction from homes due to land use conversion.

Third time

Last Sept. 30, in a 20-page terminal report submitted by Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Nasser Pangandaman to the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), the agrarian chief recommended that the SDP of the HLI be recalled.

“I recommend the total scrapping of the SDP in HLI and the immediate distribution of land to the qualified farm worker beneficiaries,” Pangandaman told reporters in a press briefing held at the DAR office in Quezon City, same day.

He said he concurred with the recommendations of the Task Force Hacienda Luisita (TFHL) and the Special Legal Team (SLT) that investigated the SDP of HLI since November last year acting on a petition filed by sugar farm workers and supervisors in the third quarter of 2003.

The DAR secretary also told the press that the investigation took place upon the orders of Congress.  Both the Senate and House of Representatives then were conducting hearings regarding the massacre of seven sugar workers during a violent dispersal at the picket line of the sugar farm and mill workers. The strike had begun Nov. 6. 

The PARC is expected to render the final decision on the case in the next two weeks.

If the PARC upholds the DAR’s recommendation, it will be the third time for Pamposa and thousands of sugar farm workers to have a chance at owning the land they say is rightfully theirs.

“Maligaya ako, maligaya kaming lahat dahil matapos ang napakatagal na panahon ay nakakakita na uli kami ng pag-asa” (I am happy, we are all happy that after a long time, we again see signs of hope), Pamposa told Bulatlat in an interview.

Converted lands

Romeo Capulong, United Nations Judge ad litem, said that while the DAR’s recommendation is an initial but landmark victory in the long quest for social justice of the farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita, there should be immediate provisional remedies to ensure the effective implementation of the decision.

Capulong, who acts as lead counsel for the farm workers, said in an interview with Bulatlat that his clients should be placed in actual possession and cultivation of the entire area covered by the land distribution program. The farmer-beneficiaries, whose number has reached more than 11,000 according to Vigor Mendoza, HLI counsel and vice president for external affairs, are expected to get around 400 sq. m. each if they divide the agricultural land now measuring 4,400 hectares from the original 4,915.75 hectares.

Five hundred hectares have been converted to residential and industrial use in 1996. However, the same area remains undeveloped and idle to this day. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) provides, however, that converted lands should be developed within five years. Otherwise, the land should be automatically reverted to agricultural use.

In this case, however, the HLI has applied for an extension of development last Nov. 14, almost simultaneous with the start of the DAR investigation. PARC OIC-Director Atanacia Guevarra, said in a separate interview that the issue remains unresolved until now. “It’s a controversial one, the DAR will have to look into that,” she said.

But Capulong said the DAR’s recommendation to recall the SDO should cover the cancellation of the conversion orders on the said area. Moreover, he said, “the DAR should promptly deny HLI’s pending applications to convert an additional 2,700 has. for similar industrial and commercial purposes.”

This should include the 66-ha., 90-km stretch Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP), a project of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

Lawyer Ibra Omar, head of TFHL and the Center for Land Use Policy Planning and Implementation, confirmed in an interview with Bulatlat that the project, which is now underway, has no conversion orders from DAR.

However, lawyer Delfin Briones Samson, DAR Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning and Legal Affairs (PPLAO) and a member of the SLT, said the expressway need not ask for a conversion order because it is a government project. What the decision means to this project, he added, is that the payment should be turned over to DAR.

HLI’s Mendoza has confirmed that the BCDA already paid management P77 million (some sources say P100 million).

Encumbrances

Capulong also asked the Register of Deeds of Tarlac to register DAR’s resolution “as an encumbrance on all the titles covering the entire estate totaling 6,453 has.”

Members of the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU), the farm workers’ union, only recently discovered that part of the hacienda was mortgaged to Prudential Bank in1991 for P 550 million.  Part of the mortgage has been paid for by the BCDA for the expressway project.

While Mendoza said the farm workers who also act as stockholders of the HLI approved the transactions, ULWU president Rene “Ka Boyet” Galang denied having any knowledge of the supposed transaction.

Samson, on the other hand, said the DAR knew of the transaction. “But when our recommendation is heeded by the PARC, we will just deduct the encumbered amount to the purchase price,” he said. The CARP provides that once the PARC revokes the SDP of HLI, the DAR is compelled to acquire the hacienda from the management and distribute it to the farmer-beneficiaries.

Capulong said that to avoid a similar predicament, the DAR should take all appropriate measures to stop or restrain further transactions on the estate “including sale, lease, mortgage or joint venture agreement.”

Court case

While the DAR recommendation is good news for the farmers, Cesar Arellano, a lawyer from the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo or Sentra (Center for Genuine Agrarian Reform), an NGO providing legal services to farmers with agrarian cases, said its implementation could take long because it involves the politically-strong and influential Cojuangco family. He said the Cojuangcos are expected to fight this out to be able to keep control of the land.

“They have done that before, they can do it again,” he said referring to the 1968 and 1989 incidents.

Mendoza confirmed that the HLI management is indeed inclined to file a court case once the PARC decides on the revocation of its SDP. “This case should be decided under the provisions of corporate laws since HLI and the farmer-beneficiaries are under a contract,” he said. 

Samson however said there is no court in the country that can stop the DAR from implementing its programs. He cited Section 55 of the CARP, which stipulates that “No court in the Philippines shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against PARC or any of its duly-authorized or designated agencies in any case, dispute or controversy arising from, necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement, or interpretation of this Act and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform.”

The PPLAO officer added that the 1989 Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between the HLI, the Tarlac Development Corp.(TADECO), HLI’s mother company, and the farmer-beneficiaries will “cease to exist” once the PARC decides to revoke the HLI’s SDP.

Political will

But Arellano said DAR has no backbone to implement this and “it will still depend on how politics moves in this country.”

It is especially true now, he added, when the decision came at a time President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is facing the biggest crisis of her political career and whose government is on a downhill due to allegations of electoral fraud, graft and corruption and rampant political killings.

“One of the hacienda heirs, former president Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino is now going against her administration. The widow of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., Cory has called for the president’s resignation in July. It is not far from the truth that the DAR decision is being used as a leverage against her,” Arellano said.

But for retired DAR director Jose Santos, one of the prosecution lawyers during the 1980-1985 court case against the Cojuangcos, it is “political will irrespective of political retribution” that should take precedence over this controversial matter.

“Nagbunga na ang matagal nang ipinaglalaban ng mga magsasaka. Sana hindi na maudlot (The long struggle of the peasants has borne fruit.  I hope it will not be stymied), he said in a phone interview with Bulatlat.

“Sa bagal ng DAR inaamag ang mga kaso dyan. Pero kung may political will, sandali lang yan” (With the slow pace of the DAR, cases gather dust before being resolved.  But if they have the political will, it will take a shorter time), he said. “The ball is now in the hands of Malacañang so the farmers should pressure it to quickly come out with a decision.” 

The PARC is chaired by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“Kung ano man ang isusulong ng mga desisyong ito ay ibubunga ng patuloy na pakikibaka ng mamamayan ng asyenda” (Whatever comes out of these decisions is the fruit of the persistent struggle of the people in the hacienda),” Arellano said.

Now 62, Pamposa has one thing to say: “Malaki ang pag-asa namin na matutupad na ang aming mga mithiin ngayon dahil ang mga tao dito sa asyenda ay nagkakaisa at palaban na. Dati konti lang kami.” (I have high hopes that we will achieve our aspirations for land because the people in the hacienda are united and militant in the struggle. We used to be so few). Bulatlat

© 2005 Bulatlat ■  Alipato Publications

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