Justice or Political
Vendetta?
For the third time since the powerful Cojuangco clan
acquired the vast sugar estate Hacienda Luisita in 1958, thousands of its
farm hands are again facing the prospect of owning the land that is
rightfully theirs. Will they finally hit this chance? Will the axe fall on
the Cojuangcos this time?
BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
FACE OFF:
Hacienda Luisita strikers in a tense confrontation with anti-riot
police before the Nov. 16, 2004 massacre
FILE PHOTO |
Ben Pamposa, a sugar farm worker at
Hacienda Luisita, was only 25 in 1968 when he was supposed to have been
awarded a parcel of land in Hacienda Luisita, the 6,453-hectare sugar
estate in Tarlac (120 kms from Manila).
That year the 10-year grace period as
stipulated in the loan agreement between Jose Cojuangco, Sr. and the
Central Bank of the Philippines and the Government Services Insurance
System for the former to distribute and sell the land to farm workers at
affordable terms had ended.
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Ten years later, the Cojuangco clan
wrote the then Ministry of Agrarian Reform (MAR) that there were no
tenants in the hacienda implying that there was no reason to distribute
the land.
In 1980, the embattled Marcos
administration filed a case against the Cojuangcos before the Manila
Regional Trial Court. This was interpreted by political observers then as
a punitive measure against Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, his chief political
rival. Aquino, who would be assassinated in 1983, was married to Corazon
Cojuangco, daughter of Jose Sr.
In 1985, the court ordered the
Cojuangcos to transfer control of the hacienda to MAR, which would in turn
distribute the land to the farm workers.
For the second time, farm workers,
including Pamposa, had a chance to own the land. But it all came to
naught when the following year, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino took over the
presidency after a people’s revolt that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.
In 1989, the hacienda was placed under
the Stock Distribution Plan (SDP). The SDP is a scheme under
Cojuangco-Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that
allows landowners, who run
their farms as corporations, to distribute shares of stock to farm workers
in lieu of actual land transfer.
Thus the birth
of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI). Immediately, the Cojuangcos claimed that
the agriculture land had been reduced to 4,443 has. The remaining lots,
they asserted, were converted to non-agricultural uses.
In paper, the SDP made the farm
workers co-owners of the hacienda . But in reality, the farm workers
suffered from low pay equivalent to P9.50 per week, reduced man days, job
losses and eviction from homes due to land use conversion.
Third time
Last Sept. 30, in a 20-page terminal
report submitted by Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Nasser
Pangandaman to the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), the
agrarian chief recommended that the SDP of the HLI be recalled.
“I recommend the total scrapping of
the SDP in HLI and the immediate distribution of land to the qualified
farm worker beneficiaries,” Pangandaman told reporters in a press briefing
held at the DAR office in Quezon City, same day.
He said he concurred with the
recommendations of the Task Force Hacienda Luisita (TFHL) and the Special
Legal Team (SLT) that investigated the SDP of HLI since November last year
acting on a petition filed by sugar farm workers and supervisors in the
third quarter of 2003.
The DAR secretary also told the press
that the investigation took place upon the orders of Congress. Both the
Senate and House of Representatives then were conducting hearings
regarding the massacre of seven sugar workers during a violent dispersal
at the picket line of the sugar farm and mill workers. The strike had
begun Nov. 6.
The PARC is expected to render the
final decision on the case in the next two weeks.
If the PARC upholds the DAR’s
recommendation, it will be the third time for Pamposa and thousands of
sugar farm workers to have a chance at owning the land they say is
rightfully theirs.
“Maligaya ako, maligaya kaming
lahat dahil matapos ang napakatagal na panahon ay nakakakita na uli kami
ng pag-asa” (I am happy, we are all happy that after a long time, we
again see signs of hope), Pamposa told Bulatlat in an interview.
Converted lands
Romeo Capulong, United Nations Judge
ad litem, said that while the DAR’s recommendation is an initial but
landmark victory in the long quest for social justice of the
farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita, there should be immediate
provisional remedies to ensure the effective implementation of the
decision.
Capulong, who acts as lead counsel for
the farm workers, said in an interview with Bulatlat that his
clients should be placed in actual possession and cultivation of the
entire area covered by the land distribution program. The
farmer-beneficiaries, whose number has reached more than 11,000 according
to Vigor Mendoza, HLI counsel and vice president for external affairs, are
expected to get around 400 sq. m. each if they divide the agricultural
land now measuring 4,400 hectares from the original 4,915.75 hectares.
Five hundred hectares have been
converted to residential and industrial use in 1996. However, the same
area remains undeveloped and idle to this day. The Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Law (CARL) provides, however, that converted lands should be
developed within five years. Otherwise, the land should be automatically
reverted to agricultural use.
In this case, however, the HLI has
applied for an extension of development last Nov. 14, almost simultaneous
with the start of the DAR investigation. PARC OIC-Director Atanacia
Guevarra, said in a separate interview that the issue remains unresolved
until now. “It’s a controversial one, the DAR will have to look into
that,” she said.
But Capulong said the DAR’s
recommendation to recall the SDO should cover the cancellation of the
conversion orders on the said area. Moreover, he said, “the DAR should
promptly deny HLI’s pending applications to convert an additional 2,700
has. for similar industrial and commercial purposes.”
This should include the 66-ha., 90-km
stretch Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project (SCTEP), a project of the
Bases Conversion and Development Authority funded by the Japan Bank for
International Cooperation (JBIC).
Lawyer Ibra Omar, head of TFHL and the
Center for Land Use Policy Planning and
Implementation, confirmed in an interview with Bulatlat that
the project, which is now underway, has no conversion orders from DAR.
However, lawyer Delfin Briones Samson,
DAR Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning and Legal Affairs (PPLAO) and
a member of the SLT, said the expressway need not ask for a conversion
order because it is a government project. What the decision means to this
project, he added, is that the payment should be turned over to DAR.
HLI’s Mendoza has confirmed that the
BCDA already paid management P77 million (some sources say P100 million).
Encumbrances
Capulong also asked the Register of
Deeds of Tarlac to register DAR’s resolution “as an encumbrance on all the
titles covering the entire estate totaling 6,453 has.”
Members of the United Luisita Workers’
Union (ULWU), the farm workers’ union, only recently discovered that part
of the hacienda was mortgaged to Prudential Bank in1991 for P 550
million. Part of the mortgage has been paid for by the BCDA for the
expressway project.
While Mendoza said the farm workers
who also act as stockholders of the HLI approved the transactions, ULWU
president Rene “Ka Boyet” Galang denied having any knowledge of the
supposed transaction.
Samson, on the other hand, said the
DAR knew of the transaction. “But when our recommendation is heeded by the
PARC, we will just deduct the encumbered amount to the purchase price,” he
said. The CARP provides that once the PARC revokes the SDP of HLI, the DAR
is compelled to acquire the hacienda from the management and distribute it
to the farmer-beneficiaries.
Capulong said that to avoid a similar
predicament, the DAR should take all appropriate measures to stop or
restrain further transactions on the estate “including sale, lease,
mortgage or joint venture agreement.”
Court case
While the DAR recommendation is good
news for the farmers, Cesar Arellano, a lawyer from the Sentro para sa
Tunay na Repormang Agraryo or Sentra (Center for Genuine Agrarian Reform),
an NGO providing legal services to farmers with agrarian cases, said its
implementation could take long because it involves the politically-strong
and influential Cojuangco family. He said the Cojuangcos are expected to
fight this out to be able to keep control of the land.
“They have done that before, they can
do it again,” he said referring to the 1968 and 1989 incidents.
Mendoza confirmed that the HLI
management is indeed inclined to file a court case once the PARC decides
on the revocation of its SDP. “This case should be decided under the
provisions of corporate laws since HLI and the farmer-beneficiaries are
under a contract,” he said.
Samson however said there is no court
in the country that can stop the DAR from implementing its programs. He
cited Section 55 of the CARP, which stipulates that “No court in the
Philippines shall have jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or writ
of preliminary injunction against PARC or any of its duly-authorized or
designated agencies in any case, dispute or controversy arising from,
necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation,
enforcement, or interpretation of this Act and other pertinent laws on
agrarian reform.”
The PPLAO officer added that the 1989
Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed between the HLI, the Tarlac
Development Corp.(TADECO), HLI’s mother company, and the
farmer-beneficiaries will “cease to exist” once the PARC decides to revoke
the HLI’s SDP.
Political will
But Arellano said DAR has no backbone
to implement this and “it will still depend on how politics moves in this
country.”
It is especially true now, he added,
when the decision came at a time President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is
facing the biggest crisis of her political career and whose government is
on a downhill due to allegations of electoral fraud, graft and corruption
and rampant political killings.
“One of the hacienda heirs, former
president Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino is now going against her
administration. The widow of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., Cory has
called for the president’s resignation in July. It is not far from the
truth that the DAR decision is being used as a leverage against her,”
Arellano said.
But for retired DAR director Jose
Santos, one of the prosecution lawyers during the 1980-1985 court case
against the Cojuangcos, it is “political will irrespective of political
retribution” that should take precedence over this controversial matter.
“Nagbunga na ang
matagal nang ipinaglalaban ng mga magsasaka.
Sana hindi na maudlot (The long struggle of the
peasants has borne fruit. I hope it will not be stymied), he said in a
phone interview with Bulatlat.
“Sa bagal ng DAR
inaamag ang mga kaso dyan. Pero kung
may political will, sandali lang yan” (With the slow pace of the DAR,
cases gather dust before being resolved. But if they have the political
will, it will take a shorter time), he said. “The ball is now in the hands
of Malacañang so the farmers should pressure it to quickly come out with a
decision.”
The PARC is chaired by President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
“Kung ano man ang isusulong ng mga
desisyong ito ay ibubunga ng patuloy na pakikibaka ng mamamayan ng asyenda”
(Whatever comes out of these decisions is the fruit of the persistent
struggle of the people in the hacienda),” Arellano said.
Now 62, Pamposa has one thing to say:
“Malaki ang pag-asa namin na matutupad na ang aming mga mithiin ngayon
dahil ang mga tao dito sa asyenda ay nagkakaisa at palaban na. Dati konti
lang kami.” (I have high hopes that we will achieve our aspirations
for land because the people in the hacienda are united and militant in the
struggle. We used to be so few). Bulatlat
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