Ex-President’s Son in Congress Row with Peasant Solon
Workers Assail ‘Modern-day Slavery’

The son of former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino last week found himself in a debate with a peasant congressman to defend Hacienda Luisita, whose management has been accused by organized farm workers of low pay, illegal retrenchment, union-busting and militarization.

By Gerry Albert Corpuz 
Bulatlat

Mariano said that farm workers in Luisita, which is in Tarlac province some two hours ride north of Manila, receive P9 a day (U.S.$0.16) for a day’s work - the lowest if not one of the lowest take home pays ever recorded in world history.

Worse, hacienda workers are now the object of what the party-list representative said of the Cojuangcos’ ongoing “illegal, unjust and inhumane retrenchment.”

Mariano said the P9 net pay of workers, under the Cojuangco family’s Stock Distribution Option (SDO) violated the P280-a-day minimum wage law.

The congressman, who is also the current chair of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Peasant Movement in the Philippines), blamed the SDO as the main culprit behind the endless poverty and dispossession of farm workers in Luisita. The SDO allows big hacienda owners, landed estates and agricultural corporations to skip land distribution and instead give shares of stocks to farmer worker beneficiaries of any land reform program of the national government, he said.

The scheme, as stipulated in the Section 31 of Republic Act 6657 otherwise known as Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) of 1988, made farm workers as stockholders of the corporation representing 30 percent of Luisita shares of stocks instead of virtual beneficiaries and owners of the agricultural estate. In addition, the 5,339 farm workers will work twice a week or 80 days a year, a deliberate move, Mariano said, by the management to deny work to thousands of farm workers in the Cojuangco sugar estate.

“This modern-day tale of master-slave relationship is absolutely despicable, deserves national condemnation and hacienda workers’ roaring rampage of protest,” Mariano told Congress. “It is a political evil.”

In a separate interview with Bulatlat later, Mariano accused the hacienda owners of deliberately imposing a “no work, no stocks, no dividends policy.” The SDO is one anti-peasant scheme that would create “a minute-after-minute nightmare to over 5,000 farm workers in the Cojuangco sugar land,” he said.

After his speech, Aquino Jr. rose to question Mariano’s report. He said it is impossible for farm workers to receive a P9 take home pay adding he has received no complaint against companies giving their employees wages and salaries way below the minimum wage prescribed by law.

Dismissing the report, Aquino, Jr. said regardless whether farm workers indicated the debts they had incurred to which they had authorized the corresponding deductions to their salaries, the take home pay would not net to P9 as claimed by Luisita workers. He also said that the last collective bargaining agreement signed by hacienda workers and the management stated that 423,000 man-days will be divided among 5,000 farm workers in Luisita or equivalent to not less than 80 days a year or twice-a week working days for farm workers.

Beginning of agrarian and labor unrest

Mariano, who had been practically involved in the struggle of Hacienda Luisita farm workers for nearly two decades, recounted how the peasant uprising and labor unrest started in the Cojuangcos’ sugar lands.

In 1988, he said, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) issued Administrative Order No.10, which provided the Guidelines and Procedures for corporate landowners desiring to avail of the SDO plan. The following year, the Tarlac Development Corporation (TADECO), created a subsidiary in the name of Hacienda Luisita to operationalize the SDO in the Cojuangco estate thereby transferring to the SDO scheme parts of its assets.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) pertaining to SDO was signed on May 11, 1989 by TADECO as the first party represented by its Vice-President Ernesto G. Teopaco, Don Pedro Cojuangco for Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) as the second party and the farm worker beneficiaries under CARP as third party.

The MoA states that 33 percent of the outstanding capital stock of the HLI equivalent to P356 million or 355,531,462 shares of stock will go to the farm workers at no cost within 30 years. By implication, hacienda’s farm workers became co-owners of the HLI.

But the day before the signing of MoA on May 11, 1989, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the application of HLI to raise its authorized capital stock to P400 million where P150 million were classified as Class A or shares of SDO beneficiaries. This was not however stipulated in the MoA signed the following day. 

Mariano said the deliberate exclusion of the authorized increase in the value of capital stock was another scheme to maintain the dominance of the Cojuangco family over the sugar estate and its capital shares representing ownership of HLI.

Illegal actions

Last year, the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA- Alliance of Farm workers in Hacienda Luisita) complained before DAR the alleged illegal actions taken by the HLI management involving the sale and conversion of lands to other commercial purposes. Farm workers said 300 hectares were sold to Luisita Industrial Park Corp. for the construction of an industrial estate. This was done through assigning of parcel of land to a new subsidiary in exchange for P12 million representing 12 million shares of stock.

Some 500 hectares of land also became object of land use conversion with the sale of 200 hectares to Luisita Realty Corporation for the construction of residential enclave

About a week ago, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that around 300 farm workers and seasonal workers in Luisita will be laid off, according to leaders of AMBALA and the United Luisita Workers Union. A protest had been conducted but brutally dispersed by Tarlac police and army troops deployed inside the 10,000 hectare sugar estate. Union officials said 300 workers would be the first to be retrenched by the HLI management in a series of illegal termination of hacienda workers.

Since 1989, 1,009 farm workers have lost their jobs due to management’s alleged manipulative schemes and imposition of job displacement against Luisita workers.

Yellow Army

Hacienda workers also complained of the Yellow Army employed by HLI to harass them and subject their families to violations of human rights. They said aside from company security guards, the Yellow Army operates as a private army of the Cojuangcos to terrorize workers and residents inside the sugar estate.

Mariano also scored the presence of military and police detachments in four out of 10 barangays (villages) in Hacienda Luisita. The Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion in Barangays Texas and Pando, the Kabayan police center in Brgy. Mapalacsiao and a patrol base in Brgy. Cutcut virtually transformed the sugar estate into a military and police garrison.

The military and police personnel, together with more than 100 members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu), subject workers and residents to almost daily surveillance, military and police abuse, Mariano added.

Dangerous place

But Congressman Aquino said Mariano was giving an impression that Hacienda Luisita was a dangerous place to live in. The Tarlac legislator also criticized media reports comparing alleged human rights violations in Luisita to those being committed in Southern Tagalog and the Mindoro provinces. He said he has yet to hear human rights violations inside the hacienda itself.

Mariano told Aquino that all military, police and Cafgu personnel should be pulled out from Luisita to restore peace and order, avoid violations of workers rights and welfare and allow HLI laborers to assert their rights for land, higher wages, better compensation and humane working conditions.

Retrenchment ahead of new CBA

Meanwhile, nine union leaders of United Luisita Workers Union were retrenched while 327 farm workers have already received notice of termination, according to documents obtained by Bulatlat. The termination was done ahead of the scheduled CBA this month.

Leaders of AMBALA, the alliance of farm workers in Luisita, called the lay-off as a clear act of union busting to weaken the bargaining position of HLI workers. But Aquino said the remaining 11 officials at the CBA could still represent the union so there was nothing to worry about.

Regarding the immediate economic relief asked by the Anakpawis peasant representative for the terminated farm workers, Aquino said it was not necessary since the workers would still receive salaries and wages at the end of the month.

“The Aquino family don’t even recognize these farm workers as co-owners of Hacienda Luisita and they even treat them like slaves in concentration camp,” Mariano lamented. “Now it wants them to lose their jobs and wallop further to the deepest quagmire of poverty.”

“Fifteen years of SDO is 15 years,” Mariano added. “Look what happened to farm workers in Hacienda Luisita. They are fighting for their survival while the Cojuangcos are making huge money from their hard labor. It is politically and socially necessary to change the system of relations in favor of our farm workers.”

Gaining ground

Meanwhile, House Resolution No. 155, filed by Mariano to investigate the impact of SDO on land reform, is reportedly gaining ground. The resolution is co-authored by House Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero (NPC, First District, Sorsogon).

Danilo Ramos, KMP secretary general, told Bulatlat that aside from Escudero, other congressmen have expressed support to Mariano’s inquiry on SDO including Reps. Benansing Macarambon, Roseller Barinaga and Del de Guzman and party list representatives Crispin Beltran (Anakpawis) and Gabriela Women Party’s (GWP) Liza Maza. Bulatlat

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