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By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com I received a very heartwarming gift last week: a bag of okra (lady’s fingers). It came from farmers of Hacienda Luisita with a note that read: “Maraming salamat.” (Thank you very much.) As I read it, I saw in my mind images of their...
"We call on the DOJ [Department of Justice] to make good their promise of creating a special panel to look into rights violations against farmers in Hacienda Luisita. With the fragile situation in Luisita, this DOJ panel must start its work now.” -- Ambala
“The Filipino peasantry has had enough of Aquino’s blatant disregard for the peoples demand for justice and genuine land reform.” – Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas
MANILA – For frustrating land distribution in Hacienda Luisita, farmworker-beneficiaries trooped to the office of Jose Cojuangco & Sons in Makati City, January 20. Travelling all the way from Tarlac, more than a hundred members of Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid...
“…Even when the Honorable Court has specifically ordered the DAR to cover all other agricultural lands in Hacienda Luisita, it did not immediately do so.”
The Cojuangco-owned Tarlac Development Corporation started bulldozing farmlands and evicting farmers in Balete village in November last year.
RELATED STORY | Luisita farmers file contempt charges vs agrarian reform department
At around 3 p.m., Dec. 21, policemen under the command of Tarlac City Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Bayani Razalan, Provincial Director Alex Sintin, chief of Great Star Security Agency, Mauro dela Cruz and Tarlac Development Corporation representative Villamor Lagunero arrested Hacienda Luisita farmers Vicente Sambo, Rod and his mother Eufemia Acosta, Ronald Sakay, husband and wife Jose and Elsa Baldiviano, and Manuel and Mamerto Mandigma. They are now detained at Camp Macabulos, headquarters of PNP-Tarlac. No charges have been filed against them as of Dec. 22.
In its April 24, 2012 decision, the Supreme Court mandated the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to implement the land distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmworker-beneficiaries. It was only in July this year that Ambala learned of Tadeco's claims over hundreds of hectares of land.
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat Perspective What is legal may not necessarily be moral. Morality is about a code of conduct that is considered right and acceptable; it is about ethics; and ethics could be based on religious beliefs or a set of principles that a society...
Ni RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com Ibinuwal ng ipu-ipo ang gintong uhay na ipinunla ng pagkakaisa Santi-sima! Napaantada ang matatanda Aanihin na sana ang bunga ng pagsisikap kundi nanalasa ang bagyo Ay! Walang ibang marapat gawin kundi bumangon Ilang bagyo na ba ang...
Each paper that was raffled not only contained the name of the farmworker beneficiary but also the corresponding lot allocation that has already been pre-determined. Farmworker-beneficiaries were never asked to pick random lot allocations from the tambiolo.
Anakpawis Rep. Fernando Hicap, Sister Pat Fox of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and former political prisoners Ericson Acosta and Kerima Tariman were among those arrested.
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld The saga of the more than half a century of struggle by the farm workers of the vast Hacienda Luisita to own and benefit from the piece of land they have been tilling has been shaped and, to a significant extent...
The organization of farm workers in Hacienda Luisita said the HLI management is engaged in a “grand collusion” with the DAR to derail if not sabotage the process to effectively stop the distribution of Luisita lands to farm worker beneficiaries by “orchestrating moves and actions detrimental to or grossly opposed to effective land distribution and justice driven land reform inside the Cojuangco-Aquino sugar estate.”
Farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita march from Tarlac to Manila to press for the immediate distribution of Hacienda Luisita land, as ordered by the Supreme Court. This video shows the hardships the farmworkers undergo to attain justice, despite the nearly insurmountable odds ranged against them by those who control the vast landholding—the family of President Benigno Aquino—who, according to the farmers, use legalities and the government's coercive forces to delay and eventually keep Hacienda Luisita under their control. But the farmworkers are not to be denied. Aside from pressing their right to land, they have already started tilling the land they say belongs to them by law and by moral right.
The Department of Agrarian Reform is seemingly caught between doing what the Supreme Court directed them to do and the dictates of the Cojuangco family.
25 years after the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program,farmers campout in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to protest the continued massive landlessness among poor Filipino farmers under what they call the "longest, most repressive land reform program in the Philippines."
“We cannot trust the DAR to distribute the lands as it is clearly an instrument of the Cojuangco-Aquinos to perpetuate their control over our lands.” – ULWU
Ni MARK ANGELES May lahing madyikero ang pulis na nanapak ng magbubukid tulad ng mistang militar na lumalamon ng national budget— may Intel na hindi intelligent; pugad ng paniniktik; bihasa sa scriptwriting at pabrika ng fabricated statement. May lahing madyikero...
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“The promissory note will make it easier for DAR and the Cojuangco-Aquinos to evict the farm worker-beneficiaries from their land. If the farm workers are unable to pay, their land would be confiscated.” – Jobert Pahilga, lawyer of Ambala
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