Two years after the Supreme Court ordered the distribution of Hacienda Luisita lands to farmworker-beneficiaries, the Cojuangco-Aquinos, with the help of the Department of Agrarian Reform, have been doing everything to maintain their stranglehold on Luisita, and to provent farmers from taking control of their own land.
On the second anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling on Hacienda Luisita, farmworker-beneficiaries stormed the main office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). They called on Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes to face them in a dialogue but neither the DAR chief nor any of his representative talked to the farmers. Instead, anti-riot police pushed Hacienda Luisita farmers out of the DAR compound.
Two years after the SC decision, Hacienda Luisita farmers said DAR has not performed its mandate of distributing the land.
“What they are doing to us is inhumane. Where is justice?” – Jaime Quiambao, one of the arrested farmers of Hacienda Luisita
“The DAR must stop the continued bulldozing and fencing of agricultural lands by the Cojuangco-Aquino owned Tarlac Development Corporation (Tadeco), Luisita Realty Corporation (LRC) and Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT).”
Ironically, after the Department of Agrarian Reform declared that the distribution of the land of Hacienda Luisita has been completed, the Tarlac Development Corporation has been driving out the farmworker-beneficiaries from the land they have been tilling.
“We cannot rely on DAR to implement genuine land reform. We cannot rely on Noynoy Aquino. We must continue implementing our own version of agrarian reform.” – United Luisita Workers Union
By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com MANILA — The year 2012 would have been joyous for the farmers of Hacienda Luisita, the vast sugar plantation controlled by President Benigno Aquino III’s family for nearly five decades. Aquino himself, during the campaign period in 2010, vowed to distribute the land by 2014. In April, the Supreme Court…
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“Until now, the Cojuangco-Aquinos have not given back our land and we have not received a single centavo as payment for our land that they sold.” – Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
What farmworkers need is land; they legally own Hacienda Luisita and the recent SC decision affirmed that. They should be given all the help they need to make the land fully productive again.” – UMA
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“Clearly, there is no other purpose for the transfer of ownership of the 500 hectares but to evade the coverage of the said portion of their landholdings from the CARP,” they said. To date, the land has remained undeveloped, the petitioners said.
By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO
“The DAR is mandated to implement land reform, but now under this Pamana program, it is being tasked to be yet another agency carrying out counter-insurgency campaigns. Yet again we insist that farmers in the provinces want land, not bullets.” –Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas