Tug-of-war in Hacienda Luisita
The Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) has set June 10 as the date for initial land
distribution in Hacienda Luisita but the parties to the dispute, including
DAR, appear to be getting deeply embroiled in a tug-of-war.
BY ABNER BOLOS
Gitnang Luzon News
Service
Posted by Bulatlat
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
has set June 10 as the date for initial land distribution in Hacienda
Luisita but the parties to the dispute, including DAR, appear to be
getting deeply embroiled in a tug-of-war.
Last Thursday, June 2, Tarlac Development
Corporation (TADECO) vice president Ernesto Teopaco called a meeting with
Luisita village officials and union officers known to be loyal to
management and announced that the Cojuangco family will now move to
restore the stock distribution plan (SDP) through a signature campaign
among farm worker beneficiaries (FWBs).
Romeo Ramos, brother of slain Central
Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) president Ricardo Ramos said that
in the meeting Teopaco reiterated management’s claim that land
distribution will not work for the farm workers and that the SDP is a
better scheme and should be restored.
“This is double talk. The company has said
that that they will abide by the court’s decision but they are now saying
something else,” Ramos told GLNS.
Ramos attended the meeting in his capacity
as a barangay (village) council member of Mapalacsiao. He replaced his
slain brother in the village council.
TADECO is the parent company of Hacienda
Luisita Inc., the registered owner of the 6,000-ha. sugar plantation that
covers 10 villages in the towns of La Paz and Concepcion and Tarlac
City. Both corporations are owned
by the family of former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.
Revoked
The SDP is the scheme under the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of the government implemented
in Hacienda Luisita in 1989 wherein stock shares were distributed to the
farm workers instead of land.
It was revoked by the government in
December last year after the 5,000-strong farm workers union and the sugar
mill workers’ union struck over demands for better wages and benefits in
November 2004.
After the SDP revocation, DAR has started
the process of land distribution but the management, in two petitions,
asked the Supreme Court to stop land distribution by issuing a temporary
restraining order (TRO). The high court has yet to decide on the case.
This coming June 10 is the 18th
anniversary of CARP.
At least 14 workers and their supporters
have been killed in connection with the labor and land dispute and the
killing are being blamed by the workers on management, the military and
the police.
The workers’ demand for land distribution
has been known as an overriding issue in the hacienda and is the root
cause of the strike.
Work fast
Also last Thursday, DAR provincial officer
for operations Nicolas Salvador told United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU)
officers in a dialogue that only the list of names of potential FWBs from
La Paz town has been submitted to his office. Barangay Motrico, in La Paz
town, is only one of the ten barangays comprising the hacienda.
“We had to work fast. We knew that that
the landowners would ask for a TRO. We immediately submitted to the Land
Bank copies of the titles and the claim folders for (CARP) coverage. But
we were met with delays in the validation of potential beneficiaries.”
Salvador told ULWU officers.
Salvador said the 1,700 hectares targeted
for distribution to some 5,077 FWBs through a collective certificate of
land ownership award (CLOA) is only a “partial” distribution.
ULWU president Rene Galang and Alyansa ng
Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luzon (AMGL) chairperson Joseph Canlas sought a
dialogue with local DAR official to ask for copies of the titles of lands
subject for land distribution, the list of qualified beneficiaries and to
seek clarification on the issuance of the collective CLOA.
ULWU has asked DAR that it should be
consulted in the identification of beneficiaries.
DAR officials earlier announced that of
the original land comprising the hacienda, at least 4,873 ha. are eligible
for CARP coverage, 1,023 ha. were cancelled and 38.5 ha. are classified as
roads and canals.
The following lots are included in the
initial distribution: Lot
18 (556 ha.) in Barangay Motrico, La Paz, Lot 30 (210 ha.) in Tarlac City
and Lot 25 (1,015) in Barangays Pasajes, Pando and Parang in Concepcion
town, according to DAR records.
Titles
Salvador said his office encountered
difficulties in pinpointing which of the lots in the titles are
agricultural, and therefore subject to CARP coverage, because they have
been “consolidated, parceled and reclassified” a number of times over the
years.
He told the group to study three titles,
all classified as agricultural, that cover more than 5,000 ha.: TCT No.
236741 in Tarlac City covering some 2,000 ha., TCT No. 236742 in
Concepcion covering some 1,800 ha., and TCT No. 236740 in La Paz covering
some 1,800 ha, as well as 10 more titles of land in Tarlac City.
ULWU has demanded that land distribution
should cover the land as it existed before SDP was implemented and that
the Cojuangco family should be held accountable and give back to the farm
workers the proceeds from all illegal transactions done while the SDP was
in effect.
ULWU has recommended that the “mother
titles” of the hacienda land should be the starting point of land
distribution namely: TCT. No. 4173, TCT. No. 4174, TCT. No. 4175 and TCT
No. 30418.
Among the parcels sold by HLI are the 500
ha. converted to non-agricultural use and sold in 1996, the 77 ha. sold to
the Base Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) for the
Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project SCTEP), and at least P550 million
from the mortgage of an undetermined number of hectares.
Asked on the implication of the mortgage
of the lands subject to land distribution Salvador said: “It’s normal.
Landowners mortgage their properties and once covered (by CARP) the Land
Bank will redeem it.”
Stop quarrying
Another point of contention is the illegal
quarrying inside the hacienda by contractors of the SCTEP.
Last
May 31, in a conference at the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB)
office in San Fernando, Pampanga, operators of illegal quarry in the
hacienda were told to once and for all stop their activities and
rehabilitate land they already damaged.
In the conference, Rolando Domingo,
assistant manager of Hazama-Taisei-Nippon Steel Joint Venture (HTN-JV),
the main contractor of the Clark-Tarlac section of the SCTEP and Rolando
Tongco, a Hazama sub-contractor and holder of a special quarry permit
agreed to stop quarry operations and to submit an abandonment and
rehabilitation report to the EMB 15 days after the meeting.
Rex Domingo, BCDA vice president for
operations also agreed to inform all their contractors to stop quarrying
within Hacienda Luisita and remove all equipment used for quarrying.
The meeting was attended by ULWU and AMGL
officers and representatives from the BCDA and the EMB, as well the SCTEP
contractors.
Complaints
The agreement was reached as a result of
complaints raised by ULWU and AMGL.
“If we did not protest against the illegal
quarry, productive land which are supposed to be distributed will continue
be ruined. The farm workers already lost more than a million pesos in
potential cane harvest which were destroyed (by the illegal quarry
operations),” AMGL chairperson Joseph Canlas said.
On May 3, the EMB issued a notice of
violation to Hazama on the grounds that quarry operations were being done
without an environmental clearance certificate, but it was largely
ignored.
Illegal quarry operations in the hacienda
have been going on since last year covering four barangays and more than
40 ha. of land. On November 17, 2005 HLI signed an agreement with Hazama
wherein HLI allows Hazama to quarry anywhere in the hacienda for five
years.
ULWU has strongly denounced the agreement
and the quarry operations saying HLI has no more right to enter an
agreement regarding the land after the SDP has been revoked and has been
covered by CARP.
The murders of Luisita union officers
Ricardo Ramos and Tirso Cruz have been linked to their opposition to the
construction of the SCTEP and the quarry operations.
For every square inch of land
But even with the CARP coverage, it seems
the farm workers will have to fight for every square inch of land.
ULWU president Rene Galang said that
pro-management village officials and scabs have illegally occupied and
used vast tracks of land.
As of February, almost half of the 992 ha.
already under cultivation by the farm workers in the hacienda is occupied
by management loyalists who have no right to the land, Galang told GLNS.
Last year, without the knowledge of the
union, HLI signed an agreement with the
Tarlac City government wherein HLI allows the use of 10 ha. in each of the
seven barangays in the hacienda which are part of Tarlac city for
livelihood projects.
Union officers said the lands were used to
build fishponds and plant export crops such as okra (gumbo) as well as for
raising livestock.
“What we need in the hacienda are crops
for consumption and not for export. We feel that union members who have
sacrificed are being robbed of their just share. Only those close to the
management benefit from the projects,” Galang said.
“Management continues to use the land and
deprive the workers. We have no choice but to fight for every square
inch,” he said. Gitnang Luson News Service / Posted by Bulatlat
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