Fifty-two years later, Hacienda Luisita has yet to be redistributed. Don Pepe’s daughter Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, wife of Ninoy, succeeded the dictator Ferdinand Marcos after his fall in 1986 through a people’s uprising, and in 1988 launched the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which she took pride in as the centerpiece of her administration. She, however, exempted Hacienda Luisita from the loophole-ridden CARP, instead placing it under a stock distribution option (SDO) that supposedly made the farmers investors in – as opposed to owners of – the hacienda, which was never the intention of a genuine land-reform program.

In 2004, the Hacienda Luisita management dismissed 176 seasonal and 150 permanent farm workers, all members of the ULWU. This was after a series of collective bargaining agreement negotiations (CBA) that started in July that same year bogged down. They were dismissed for refusing a forced-retirement scheme that included gratuity pay and a bonus of P50,000. Their dismissal was to take effect on Oct. 1 that year.

The ULWU sent a notice of strike on Sept. 30 to protest the dismissal of its 326 members. It sent another notice of strike on Oct. 22 that same year, citing this time the management’s refusal to negotiate, which resulted in a CBA deadlock.

Strike

On Nov. 6, after a series of consultations, the ULWU decided to stage a strike to demand the reinstatement of 73 members who had not received their gratuity pay, as well as the confirmation of their CBA demands that included wage increases and additional work days (they were being made to work only one day a week, with wages amounting to only P9.50 a day), and hospital benefits.

Besides these, they also demanded the revocation of the stock distribution option (SDO) and the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita.

They were joined in the strike by the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), the union of Hacienda Luisita’s sugar mill workers, whose CBA negotiations had also failed after the management refused their demand for a P150 increase in daily wages, instead offering only a P12 increment.

For the next 11 days, the protesters faced three dispersal attempts by a combined police and military contingent, but they stood their ground.

On Nov. 16, they fought back as the police and the soldiers repeatedly pushed them and sprayed them with water and tear gas. A barrage of bullets then sent them scampering for safety. Seven strikers lay dead and 181 more were wounded after the shooting, which lasted for two minutes.

Within one month, three of the strikers’ staunch supporters – Councilor Abelardo Ladera, Aglipayan priest Reverend William Tadena, and retired Army Sgt. Marcelino Beltran – were also gunned down.

The killings caught the attention of Congress, which conducted an investigation, and the international community. The violence was widely condemned in the Philippines and abroad.

In 2005, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) ordered that the SDO for Hacienda Luisita be revoked and that the land be redistributed to farm-worker beneficiaries. A resolution issued by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) upheld the DAR order later that year.

On June 14, 2006, however, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the DAR and the PARC from redistributing the land, following a petition filed by the management of Hacienda Luisita.

Unfazed by the Supreme Court’s TRO, farm workers led by the ULWU carried out what Bais called a “cultivation campaign” that entailed growing food crops, mainly rice, for themselves and their families.

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