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For Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), Visaya deserves to be prosecuted, not promoted.
“Two Cojuangco-Aquinos have won the presidency with the promise to distribute Hacienda Luisita to us farmworkers. But look at what’s happening to us here now,” Sibayan said.
UMA challenged all presidential candidates, especially Aquino’s anointed, Mar Roxas, to speak out against these atrocities.
“The fateful incident may be a distant memory for President Aquino and the Cojuangco-Aquinos but Filipinos will never forget Hacienda Luisita massacre.”
Behind the barrage of official information from Malacanang and concerned government agencies, what did Aquino and his clan do in Hacienda Luisita?
“The DAR says that running issues in Luisita are not agrarian in nature. How absurd is that?”
“Instead of functioning like an unabashed apologist, why not just file charges?”
"It appears that even Justice Secretary Leila de Lima was ordered not to act on the complaints we filed against the Cojuangco-Aquinos.”
The Catholic Bishops has been pushing for another extension of the CARPER because of the prevailing landlessness among the country's peasant majority. The Aquino government has supposedly acquiesced and instructed its allies in Congress to extend CARPER.
Progressive farmers' groups, on the other hand, are pushing not for another extension of CARPER but its version of agrarian reform, the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.
And the debate is on.
“Is justice only for the rich and not for the poor?”
SPECIAL REPORT: “Every time I see him (President Benigno Aquino III), my heart is overwhelmed with grief and anger.”
A 2005 report on the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation read: 'We find that the protesters were more credible than the government personnel,' and it recommended the filing of homicide charges against nine policemen.
Judge Scott Robinos of the Tarlac Municipal Trial Court Branch 1 referred the case filed by the Tarlac Development Corporation (Tadeco) against five farmers to the DAR, Oct. 1.
To date, no one has been punished for the gruesome killings.
The international group called for a joint inquiry by Senate and the House of Representatives on the reported abuses in Hacienda Luisita.
“Justice remains elusive but his death would not be for naught if we continue what my father fought for.”
The Cojuangco-Aquino-owned firm in Hacienda Luisita has been putting up concrete barriers around farm lots, assaulting and illegally arresting farmers. But 56 years after the Cojuangcos laid claim on the estate, the farmers are not about to give up the fight for their right to the land.
“The public must be made aware that the worst atrocities are being committed by no less than the Presidential family against hapless farmers despite – or as cruel retribution for – the Supreme Court ruling for total land distribution in Hacienda Luisita.” – Jobert Pahilga, counsel for the Luisita farmers and executive director of the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra)
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