SPECIAL REPORT

After Luisita, Now It’s Sugarlandia
Negros farmers groups demand similar SDO cancellation
First of two parts

After Tarlac City, Negros sugarlandia is bracing for peasant rumblings as demand has been raised for the cancellation of the stock distribution scheme (SDO) in several plantations. Negros has the most number of SDOs which, farmers groups say, have made them forever landless.

By Karl G. Ombion and Ranie Azue
Bulatlat

BACOLOD CITY – The recent decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) revoking the 14-year-old stock distribution option (SDO) of Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City in Central Luzon has opened the floodgates to renewed demands by farmers for the cancellation of SDOs in several sugar plantations in Negros Island, central Philippines. MISERABLE STILL: Farmworkers like them remain poor after decades of SDO schemes in large sugar plantations. CIRMS PHOTO

Of the 13 SDOs that virtually exempted big sugar landholdings throughout the country from the 1987 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), nine are in Negros Occidental. Of these, nine are in Negros Occidental. The other SDOs are, aside from Tarlac, in Iloilo in central Philippines, and Davao in the south.

True enough, following the recent cancellation of the SDO scheme of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) owned by the powerful Cojuangco-Aquino family in Tarlac by DAR, the DAR-Negros is undertaking a summary review of all SDOs and related land arrangements, especially in Negros.

Manuel Velasco, Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer 1 (PARO) of Negros Occidental, admitted that his office has been swarmed by queries and complaints from agrarian reform beneficiaries with many of them saying they also have their right to get the lands they have been tilling for years.

“I am not surprised by these reactions,” Velasco told Bulatlat. “I can understand the desire of the farmers to own the lands they till. But they have to go through the process. So we’re reviewing all SDOs.”

Corporations

Five of the nine SDOs covering 542 hectares with 472 beneficiaries all planted with sugarcane are owned by Arsenio Acuna Agricultural Corporation, Elenita Agricultural Development Corp., Hacienda Elenita, Barangay (village) Burgos, Cadiz City;  Archie Fishpond Inc., Hacienda Pag-asa, Barangay Luna, Cadiz City; Tabigue Marine Ventures Inc., Hacienda Tabigue, Barangay Tabigue, EB Magalona, Negros Occidental.; Ma. Clara Marine Ventures Inc., Brgy Calumangan, Bago City; and Palma-Kabankalan Agri Corp, Hacienda Palma, Ilog town, Negros Occidental.

The others are Ledesma Hermanos Agricultural Corp., Hacienda Fortuna, Brgy Buluangan, San Carlos, Negros Occidental, owned by former Rep. Julio A. Ledesma, with 1,024 has., 747 beneficiaries; Wutrich Hermanos Inc., Hacienda Sto. Tomas, Barangay Buenavista, Calatrava, Negros Occidental, owned by Otto Weber Jr., 174 hectares, 177 beneficiaries; SVJ Farms Inc., Hacienda Anita, Barangay Concepcion, Talisay City, Negros Occidental, owned by Ma. Regina M Villanueva, 170 hectares, 144 beneficiaries; and the NAJALIN Agri Ventures Inc., Hacienda Najalin, Brgy Nagasi, La Carlota, Negros Occidental, owned by Rudolph E. Jularbal and Joaquin G. Teves, with 438 hectares, 273 beneficiaries. Aside from the 13, Velas said another SDO is in Negros Oriental owned reportedly by the Teves family. He gave no further details.

Hunger is the lot of this Negros farm worker in his decrepit dwelling place, despite the promises of the SDO scheme. CIRMS PHOTO

The nine SDO farms in Negros Occidental have a total area of 2,348 hectares, with 1,813 agrarian reform beneficiaries. Six of these have been in existence since 1991, the other three since 1992.

Referendum

Asked by Bulatlat why Negros has the most number of SDOs, Velasco said the nine in Negros Occidental were the fastest in complying with the requirements set by the DAR. He said agrarian reform beneficiaries voted for the SDO in a referendum and then signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the landowner. (In Tarlac, farm workers unions said they were pressured and cajoled by the Cojuangco-Aquino family to vote for the referendum.)

However, peasant groups led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP – Peasant Movement in the Philippines) have denounced the SDO, which was attached to the CARP by President Corazon Aquino in 1990, as an instrument allowing landlords to keep huge landholdings while tenant farmers remain landless.

Indeed, as Velasco said, under the SDO qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries do not get the land but are given only stock certificates, with corresponding monetary value and yearly dividends from the company’s net earnings.

He also confirmed complaints of farm workers in some SDO-covered farms saying that while they are supposed to be part-owner of the corporation, they do not actually own the farms, and are not part of any corporate decision-making.

These reinforced, Velasco added, the growing opposition of the farm workers toward the SDO.

Agrarian reform beneficiaries interviewed by Bulatlat confirmed the miserable situation of the farm workers under SDO, as experienced by their counterparts in Tarlac.

At the SVJ Farms, for instance, agrarian reform beneficiaries who asked not to be named said that they receive low wages but not clear dividends. Their supposed profit sharing is never honored by the landowner either. Contrary to the MoA, they receive no rice subsidy or housing support, among others, they also said.

Over at Hacienda Palma, farm workers complained of similar problems. At most, they said, they only receive PhP 500 for every person per year as dividend.

JVA, another name for SDO scheme

Aware of the visible failures of the SDO scheme, Velasco batted for a better option for agrarian reform beneficiaries - the Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) scheme – used by former Ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojangco, Jr. for his ECJ Farms, Inc.

As a modified version, Velasco said, JVA is more beneficial to the farm workers compared to other existing SDOs. Under it, although the lands are retained by the landowner (ECJ) the farm workers under the cooperative earn a bigger share in profit compared to those in farms covered by SDO, he said.     

However, ECJ Farms beneficiaries earlier interviewed by Bulatlat insisted that Cojuangco has only used the corporative scheme to make it appear that agrarian reform has been implemented. Fact is, they said, ECJ remains very much in feudal hands and its cooperative, the ECJ Farms Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multi-Purpose Cooperative, as a farce controlled by Cojuangco’s own people.

Lawyer Ben Ramos, executive director of Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group Inc. (PDG), said that the public are misled to believe through media hype that ECJ landholdings have been distributed, that the farmworkers are now freed from feudal bondage, and are now enjoying a better life.

Requests for SDO cancellation

Meantime, farm workers of Hacienda Palma, Najalin Agri Ventures Inc., Ma. Clara Marine Ventures Inc., and SVJ Farms have reportedly asked DAR-Negros to fast-track the cancellation of their SDOs and move instead for land distribution.

Velasco explained however that DAR cannot directly intervene in the implementation of SDO and hence, its cancellation, without any written request from the beneficiaries.   

Violent confrontations feared in Negros

Ealier, Richard Sarrosa, chairman of KMP-Negros told Bulatlat that what happened to HLI in Tarlac may also happen to the farmers and farmworkers in Hacienda Balatong and other SDO farms in Negros because “the elements of land control, deceptions, and the suppression of agrarian reform beneficiaries’ right to land, are deeply intertwined.”

Sarrosa said that “the Cojuangcos in Negros may appear benign and philanthropic because of their enormous donations and pledges to civic actions, schools, teachers, and church programs, but they cannot hide their dirty hands as far as records of repression in their land properties are concerned.”

Cojuangco’s security guards, reportedly in cahoots with the military and members of the RPA-ABB have been linked by farmers groups and rights watchdogs to the massacre of children spider hunters as well as to land expansion schemes in Negros. Bulatlat / With CIRMS News Service