AFP, Police Can’t Win ‘Hearts and Minds’ at Hacienda Luisita

Hacienda Luisita continues to be a battle ground, albeit unarmed, between residents and government troops. Since March 10, three companies of soldiers have been deployed here while angry people and village officials have been trying to drive them away by sheer grit and numbers.

BY ABNER BOLOS
Bulatlat

“We are your soldiers. We are here to protect you and keep the peace,” a young private from the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) told residents in Barangay (village) Mapalacsiao in Hacienda Luisita. About 20 of them were standing at the edge of the village next to the sugar cane fields facing off a big crowd that have gathered early that morning to drive them away.

“You have no business being here. You have no name plates, no papers and no permission from the barangay council. We are at peace here and we did not request your presence,” Ricardo Ramos, village chairman and president of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), told the soldiers above the din of angry shouting.

After a few more minutes of heckling by the villagers and protestations from the soldiers, bags, guns and belongings were picked up and the troops slowly walked away toward the sugar cane fields and the next village several kilometers away.

Over the past month, the scene will be repeated in almost all of the 10 barangays of Hacienda Luisita, the 6,000-ha sugar plantation owned by the family of former president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino and site of the most controversial and bloody workers’ strike in the country’s labor history.

DLR investigation

Union officials believe that the army deployment was intended to influence the results of the investigation by the Department of Land Reform (DLR) regarding the implementation of stock distribution option in the hacienda held last March 15.

In fact, a Bulatlat source from the DLR said the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) management actually wrote to members of Task Force Hacienda Luisita (TFHL), asking them to postpone the investigation.

The letter supposedly cited the presence of “heavily armed New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas” in the area, allegedly to avenge the death of slain Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera who was killed in broad daylight March 3 in the same city.

The DLR source added that the HLI letter confirmed that three army companies from Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija have been deployed in the area since March 10.

With this development, the HLI management reportedly warned TFHL that an armed confrontation between the two parties may occur and the possibility of being caught in the crossfire is not remote.

This warning may have brought anxiety to some members of the TFHL, the DLR source told Bulatlat. The source said some of the TFHL members admitted that had the HLI letter reached them earlier, they would not have gone through with the investigation.

But the heavy presence of the military in the hacienda on the day of the DLR investigation did not prevent the farm workers from speaking out their minds regarding the SDO.

“If that was their intention, then they failed miserably because in the village consultations conducted by DLR officials, our members went on record to say that they want the SDO revoked and the military to withdraw immediately,” ULWU president Rene Galang said.

Galang said the main objective of the troop deployment is to instill fear among the people, discourage them from manning the picket line and eventually end the strike through another violent dispersal.

Deployment

Lt. Col. Preme Monta, NOLCOM spokesperson, told reporters that the deployment of troops is necessary because “armed men, believed to be New People’s Army [NPA] guerillas were sighted” in the villages inside Hacienda Luisita.

“This is a pursuit operation (against the NPA) to protect the people,” said Monta, a claim belied by local officials.

Ramos told Bulatlat that the barangay council and the barangay tanods (village peace and order units) are enough to maintain peace and order in the hacienda.

“They keep on saying that they (soldiers) are here to protect us but the opposite is true. Whenever soldiers arrive, our normal lives are disrupted. The presence of NPAs is always a convenient excuse for deploying the military,” Ramos said.

The Mapalacsiao village council has passed a resolution demanding the immediate pull out of the soldiers from NOLCOM. Since March 30, thousands of hacienda residents have signed a petition denouncing the deployment and demanding immediate troop withdrawal.

Harassment

However, Galang said union members who have been conducting the petition signing are themselves being harassed by the military.

In Barangay Pasajes on the evening of March 30, residents Noel Mallari and Alvin Grafil were taken by the military to the barangay hall for questioning. After the interrogation, the military took the signed petition papers and sent them home.

On the same day in Barangay Cutcut II, 13 Ulwu members were also taken by the military to the barangay hall for interrogation. Afterwards, they were asked to sign affidavits and another sheet of paper reportedly stating that they are “returning to the fold of the law.”

Galang said however that the 13 farm workers refused to sign the latter.

Several cases of looting and cattle rustling have been reported allegedly committed by the soldiers. In one barangay, soldiers were reported to have caught fish from a communal pond without permission from village officials, adding to the disgust and anger of residents.

Union officials had to seek refuge in safe places because the soldiers were constantly asking for their whereabouts.

As of this writing, three companies from the 69th Infantry Battalion and 703rd Infantry Brigade are engaged in a tug-of-war in eight of the 10 outlying villages in the hacienda: Asturias, Lourdes, Bantog and Cutcut II, in Tarlac City, Parang, Mabilog and Pando in Concepcion town and Motrico in La Paz town.

The soldiers patrol the fields and enter the villages at night. In the morning, irate residents would ask them to leave.

At odds

Soldiers and police and the hacienda community have been at odds since the bitter labor dispute started almost five months ago. Ten people have been killed, including a priest and a city councilor who both supported the strike, while more than 100 undred hacienda residents and their supporters have been wounded and jailed since.

The unions have openly defied two return-to-work orders issued by the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) and continue to man some 14 picket lines surrounding the sugar mill. They blame the killings on government troops and the Cojuangcos.

 On Nov. 6, last year, the 5,000-strong United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU), the plantation workers’ union and the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), the sugar mill workers’ union, went on strike simultaneously over the termination of 327 plantation workers and the deadlock of the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations being held also simultaneously with management.

On the night of the first day of the strike and into the next morning, hundreds of police and soldiers tried to disperse the striking workers at the picket line in Gate 1 of the sugar mill using truncheons, tear gas and water cannons but the workers managed to withstand the assaults. Nenita Mahinay, the unions’ lawyer, maintains the dispersal attempts were illegal and inhuman.

On Nov. 15, about 300 anti-riot police again attempted to remove the human cordon in Gate 1 but failed. The next day, more than 1,000 soldiers and police, backed by army tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs) and fire trucks attempted for the fourth time to disperse the workers in Gate 1. When tear gas and water cannons failed to dislodge some 5,000 workers, their families and supporters at the picket line, shooting started and seven strikers were killed.

“We cannot blame the people for being wary at the presence of soldiers. They are perceived as instruments of the Cojuangco family, sent to drive us away from the picket line and, eventually, from our homes and our claim on the hacienda land,” Galang told Bulatlat.

“After the deaths of our fellow workers and supporters, hate and fear of the military and police have struck the people of the hacienda,” Galang said. Bulatlat

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