Hacienda Luisita workers:
Will Justice Finally be Served?

Although long overdue, a recommendation by a government legal team to revoke the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) scheme is a major step in upholding the legitimacy of the Hacienda Luisita workers' struggle.

By John Paul Andaquig and Sweet Mary Cawicaan

IBON Features / September 2005

Posted by Bulatlat

IBON Features - Nearly a year since losing at least seven of their co-workers to a violent dispersal by military and police elements, the farm workers of Hacienda Luisita continue their struggle despite harassment by military units and efforts by management to undermine the agrarian issue.

At the very least, their petition for the scrapping of the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) scheme is gaining ground. The special legal team of the Department of Land Reform, tasked to review the findings of Task Force Luisita, has confirmed that the management of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) committed violations of the 1989 memorandum of agreement for the implementation of the SDO scheme.

The agreement for the SDO was signed in 1989 and supposedly went through a referendum among the 5,000 farmworkers of HLI. The stock transfer scheme was the Cojuangcos' way of complying with the agrarian reform program of then President Corazon Aquino, whose family is part-owner of the 6,543-hectare agricultural estate.

Under the SDO agreement, the HLI farm workers would own 33.3 percent of the total stocks of HLI, making them "co-owners" of the corporation.

But the HLI farm workers have long asserted that the SDO was nothing more than another exploitative scheme to facilitate the non-provision of benefits and retrenchment of workers.

Their living conditions are enough proof for their call to scrap the SDO scheme and nullify the 1989 agreement that management insist was agreed upon by "94% of the farmers."

Not a political vendetta

In its terminal report, the DLR legal team supported the findings of Task Force Luisita that living conditions of HLI workers have further deteriorated under the SDO, and that provisions are grossly advantageous to farmer-beneficiaries since the distribution of shares is dependent on management's discretion.

The report also confirmed the allegations of farmworkers that they were misled by HLI into believing they would receive dividends from any income-generating activity of the corporation.

In an interview with IBON last year, HLI farmworkers said the SDO was not really a stock distribution scheme but was simply an "additional wage benefit" since the conditions for the distribution of dividends to farmer-beneficiaries is dependent on the number of man-days, or the days a farmer actually worked in the sugar milling company.

The problem with this, the farmworkers said, was that the management unilaterally limited the number of man-days per worker since 1994 owing to supposed financial losses of the company following the decline of world prices of sugar and sugarcane products. The number of man-days per year was reduced to only 423,000 man-days to be divided among the more than 5,000 workers of HLI, or roughly 80 man-days per worker. In other words, even if a farmer wanted to work at least five days a week, he can only work and earn once in a week. In this set-up, his stocks and dividends are almost nil.

The farmworkers also said they couldn't possibly be "stockholders" under the SDO since the management has retrenched many of their ranks. Since 2000, the HLI has begun to implement voluntary early retirement for its supervisors and farmworkers. About 1,009 farmworkers have been retrenched under the SDO, including the 327 ULWU officers and members that were sacked last October 2004.

The HLI management on the other hand said in a news report that they had distributed 118 million shares of stocks to the farmworkers, even ahead of a 2019 deadline as stipulated in the agreement. The management also said the SDO has benefited workers, including the provision of homelots.

But these shares and the homelots, farmworkers insisted, were dependent on the workers' status. Once retrenched, a farmworker loses his stocks and dividends and the supposed benefits from the SDO.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman said the terminal report was "very objective" and is set to announce his final decision this week, whether he will submit the report to the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) headed by President Arroyo.

In the end, the fate of the 5,000 Hacienda Luisita farmworkers and their families may have to be decided by President Arroyo herself.

The DLR recommendation has raised rumors of political vendetta being waged by the Arroyo government as payback to former President Aquino's support of moves to oust the incumbent administration.

But the militant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), which has been assisting the HLI farmworkers in their struggle, said that the decision should not be reduced to mere political issue since the farmers have fought long and hard to make their conditions heard by authorities.

The HLI management is expected to contest the decision up to the courts, while the ULWU has yet to issue an official statement regarding their actions following the favorable decision.

There is still blood in your sugar

Nevertheless, a possible revocation of the SDO scheme will be a big step in the struggle of HLI workers for genuine land reform and decent living conditions, especially at a time when harassments continue and management seems bent on expanding industrial estates within Hacienda Luisita.

Since the bloody dispersal of Nov. 16 last year, farmworkers and their families have been under intense militarization. Farmers said that the Hacienda Luisita now looks more like a military camp than a sugar plantation.

"Para na ngang garison ng militar ang asyenda, kulang na nga lang patirahin na namin ang mga sundalo dito" (The hacienda looks more like a military garrison, it's as if the soldiers already live here), describes a 42-year old farm worker who asked that his full name be withheld for security reasons.

The farm worker lives in Brgy. Balete, one of ten barangays within the Luisita estate, that have been under military surveillance by troops from the Philippine Army, Philippine National Police and even the Marines.

"Maging sa Brgy. Asturias, pinakamaliit nang barangay, may mahigit 80 sundalo na nagmamatyag" (Even in Bgy. Asturias, the smallest barangay, there are more than 80 soldiers on guard), said 48 year-old Angelito Bais, an ULWU member and barangay official. He said many of his co-residents have been branded by the military as members of the New People's Army (NPA).

Even Bais is now on the military list of alleged NPA rebels, since he aired his sentiments against the management during an Aug. 25 dialogue between residents and officials of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), the main proponent agency of the Subic-Clark Tarlac Expressway Project.

Farmers said that the transportation project is one of the factors why militarization has increased especially in towns where the expressway project would pass through.

In Brgy. Balete, for instance, violence almost ensued last Aug. 18 when residents prevented an excavation team accompanied by military elements from bulldozing a part of their barangay.

Last Sept. 19, ULWU President Rene Galang said that soldiers of the Northern Luzon Command tried to disperse picketing workers in Brgy. Mapalacsiao. Galang said the incident started after ULWU members refused to accept payment for their lands to be converted for the expressway project.

These are among several reported incidents of harassment that has further created a climate of fear among residents and farmworkers. A resident said about 45 Marines under the leadership of Brig. Gen. Jovito Palparan are already within Hacienda Luisita. Palparan is the former unit commander in the Mindoro and Samar provinces and have been linked to several cases of human rights violations.

Until today, justice has yet to be served to the seven Hacienda Luisita workers who died last Nov. 16, as well as activists, human rights workers, church people and local officials that were slain in connection with the Hacienda Luisita case.

Communal farming

For the past several months, the striking farmworkers have relied on outside support, particularly from Church groups, NGOs and local and international human rights organizations, to maintain their struggle amid worsening poverty on top of the harassment they have been facing.

"Napakahirap pa rin talaga ng buhay namin. Marami sa amin ang wala pa ring trabaho. Nakakatuloy lang kami sa laban dahil sa tulong ng maraming grupo na dumadalaw sa piketlayn namin" (We are still facing a very difficult life. Many of us are still without work. We only get by because of the support of many organizations that visit our picketline), said Galang in an Aug. 19 interview during the People's Tribunal of the International Solidarity Mission.

Galan’s sentiments are echoed by ULWU members.

Bais, for his part, has been working in the Hacienda Luisita estate as a seasonal sugar worker for 25 years. But he was among those retrenched last Aug. 2004, a few months before another batch of farm workers were laid-off, including several ULWU officers.

Three of Bais's children already have families of their own but have remained in the hacienda for lack of job opportunities outside. Two of his children are working in the Luisita Industrial Park (LIP), a 120-hectare commercial district within HLI built in the early 1990s.

Bais's wife washes clothes for employees within the LIP. But poverty continues to afflict Bais and his family.

To make ends meet, Bais along with his fellow farmworkers have turned to communal farming. "Nag-organisa kami na magtanim ng mga gulay sa mga bakanteng lote" (We plant vegetables in vacant lots) said Bais. Through the help of organizations supporting their strike, Bais and his co-workers were able to avail of vegetable seeds which they planted on small lots. The produce is then shared among farmers of the community or among picketing workers in other barangays.

Though their fate remains uncertain-- as the SDO scheme will have to go through Malacañang-- the HLI farmworkers are determined more than ever to intensify their struggle until their rights as tenant-farmers are recognized and protected. IBON Features / Posted by Bulatlat

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