This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 13, May 7-13, 2006
Farm
workers of Hacienda Luisita are challenging President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to
prove that she is not merely using the Hacienda Luisita issue to spite former
Pres. Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, heir to the Luisita estate and one of the
president’s main political opponents.
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Farm workers of Hacienda
Luisita, the 6,419-hectare sugar estate owned and operated by the influential
Cojuangco clan of Tarlac for the last five decades, demand the immediate
distribution of the whole property after the Presidential Agrarian Reform
Council (PARC) ruled with finality the revocation of the estate's Stock
Distribution Plan (SDP). The hacienda, located at
the boundaries of three major municipalities of Tarlac – Tarlac City, Concepcion
and La Paz – is comprised of 10 barangays (villages) and the Central Azucarera
de Tarlac (CAT), the second largest sugarmill the country. Seven striking farm
workers were killed and more than a hundred wounded when police and military
dispersed the picketline at the hacienda’s gate on Nov. 16, 2004. Hacienda Luisita was
subjected to land reform in 1989, under the administration of President Corazon
Cojuangco-Aquino, an heir of the Cojuangco family. However, the land reform
scheme adopted was the SDP where only stock certificates instead of actual land
parcels were distributed to the beneficiaries. The Stock Distribution
Option (SDO) provided by Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)
allows landlords to run landholdings like a corporation wherein the
farmer-beneficiaries are given stocks in exchange for land. Through the SDO, the
Cojuangcos declared only 4,915 ha. of the hacienda as subject to land reform and
placed it under the corporate name Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI). The remaining
2,000 ha. were declared non-agricultural.
After 16 years of SDP, farm
worker beneficiaries have become more impoverished and petitioned for its
revocation. In their petition, the FWBs reported to the Department of Agrarian
Reform (DAR) that their take-home pay went to as low as P9.50 a week. They also
complained of unfair labor practices and illegal retrenchment. On Nov. 6, 2004, around
5,000 Luisita farm-workers and 700 mill workers staged a strike that lasted for
11 months. The strike was lifted on Dec. 8, 2005. Rene Galang, a hacienda
beneficiary and president of the United Luisita Workers' Union (ULWU), the
farm-workers' union, said the strike succeeded in asserting their claim to the
land. It was only during the strike that the DAR acted upon their petition for
SDP revocation, he added. "The PARC resolution to
finally distribute the land could not have been achieved if not for the
unwavering struggle of the hacienda people and the martyrdom of at least 14 of
our co-workers and supporters," Galang said. Seven other peasant leaders
and their supporters have been killed by suspected military men since the
strike. The latest victim was ULWU Board member, Tirso Cruz, who was slain by
motorcycle-riding men at dawn of March 17. Another farmer-beneficiary, Ronald
Intal, was abducted on April 3 and remains missing. Although Galang views the
land distribution as a victory for the hacienda people, he said the issue raises
many persistent land questions. He said they would clarify
with the DAR and the PARC all transactions entered into by HLI after the SDP
implementation. He said these transactions entailed illegalities and must be
carefully reviewed. Galang said the
illegalities include the conversion of 500 ha. sugar land to industrial and
residential use, the 66-ha. Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP) of the
Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) that will traverse through 90
km. of the hacienda, and the 40-ha. quarry contract in Concepcion and Tarlac
City declared illegal by the Department of Environment Natural Resources (DENR)
on April 24. Galang added that the ULWU
had applied for lis pendens, or a notice that will warn all persons that
the property is being disputed. They filed for the lis pendens after
they discovered last year that a big chunk of the land have been mortgaged
by HLI to the Bank of Commerce, without approval of the farmer-beneficiaries
who own 30 percent of HLI stocks under the SDP. The Luisita land will only
be partially distributed, DAR Undersecretary Narciso Nieto said in a phone
interview with Bulatlat. Only the 4,915 has. declared by HLI as
agricultural land will be distributed. The DAR official said 95
percent of the beneficiaries have been identified, but they are ready to
distribute only about 1,000 hectares to 1,000 beneficiaries in two barangays in
Tarlac City. The distribution is expected to be made on June 10 on CARP’s 18th
anniversary.
He said it would take DAR
six months to one year to complete distribution of the covered agricultural land
to more than 8,000 farm-worker beneficiaries. Nieto also said the DAR
would be issuing a Collective Certificate of Land Acquisition (CLOA) instead of
Individual CLOAs. There will be one mother title for the estate that would
include all the names of the beneficiaries. He said the hacienda has
not less than five titles that the DAR still has to document and submitted to
the Land Bank for valuation. After the PARC ruling,
Macapagal-Arroyo received flack from HLI spokesperson and legal counsel Vigor
Mendoza who charged the president of using the issue to get back at Aquino, a
political opponent. The former president has
joined calls for Arroyo’s ouster after electoral fraud issues haunted Macapagal-Arroyo
last year. Cojuangco-Aquino also lobbied for the president's impeachment last
year and has now joined an anti-Charter Change alliance to counter the
president's People's Initiative for Charter Change. "We challenge the president
to prove that she is not using the Hacienda Luisita issue to get back at the
Cojuangcos by immediately distributing all of 6,000 hectares of the sugar land
to the beneficiaries," Galang said. "We also demand the
immediate pull-out of military deployment in the hacienda and render justice to
our martyred kin and supporters by punishing their murderers," Galang ended.
Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat
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Hacienda
Luisita Farmers Demand Full Land Distribution
Bulatlat
Fruits of struggle
Land questions
Partial distribution
Challenge