The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Hacienda Luisita issue has turned out to be a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the head of Liberal Party standard bearer Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III in his trek to the presidency.

Just a couple of days after Aquino declared his presidential bid, farmers including the former tenants and farm workers of Hacienda Luisita quickly posed a challenge for him to substantiate his platform especially on the issues of agrarian reform, human rights, and social justice right in his family’s vast backyard.

Hacienda Luisita, a more than 6,000-hectare sugar estate owned by the influential Cojuangco clan in the Province of Tarlac, was placed under the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by the late President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino in 1989.

In November 16, 2004, seven strikers instantly died and scores were wounded when police and military open fired against the striking farmers and farm workers, now known as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre, who are demanding to scrap the SDO scheme.

In 2005, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) revoked Hacienda Luisita’s SDO, which gave farmers stocks instead of ownership of a piece of land. The Luisita management appealed the decision before the Supreme Court and secured a temporary restraining order.

Sen. Aquino, son of the late President and whose family owns the Hacienda, himself cannot simply ignore and evade the issue and has resorted to some sort of political spin.

“As of now, for me personally, if my family finds it hard to stay there as before, then maybe my family should leave,” Aquino said in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report.

“And once my family leaves, then I would really be free and no one can say, even by a bit, that I have a vested interest,” he added.

Aquino pointed out that his family only owns a minority stake in the plantation, just 1/32, and his father, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., had given away his share of land when he was still a mayor.

“I think those of my mom, the conjugal property, were also included. That is why agrarian reform was a centerpiece program of my mother,” Aquino said.

Challenge

Luisita farmers and farm workers however cannot be easily swayed, the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (Ambala) called on Aquino to withdraw his family’s petition for a temporary restraining order before the Supreme Court urging it to stop the PARC from distributing the land to farm workers and other qualified beneficiaries, according to a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

“The first thing Senator Noynoy should do is to recognize the cultivation campaign of Hacienda Luisita workers is an assertion of farm workers’ rights and therefore lawful and politically and morally correct,” said ULWU acting chair Lito Bais said.

The Luisita farmers “bungkalan” (cultivation) campaign has covered some 2,000 hectares of the 6,453-hectare sugar estate. The campaign has benefited 838 families, about 1,670 individuals, spread in the Barangays of Malapacsiao, Asturias, Bantog, Cut-Cut, Balite, Mutrico, Pando, Texas, Pasajes, and Parang, according to Bais.

On Aquino’s joining the presidential race, a Philippine Daily Inquirer article last September 23 quoted a Luisita farm worker saying that “historically, no member of the Cojuangco family has won in Hacienda Luisita.”

“They will support even the weakest candidate facing a Cojuangco. They will ignore the candidate that the Cojuangcos endorse. In the last elections, Peping lost in Hacienda Luisita,” the farmer narrated referring to Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr.’s loss in the 2007 gubernatorial race in Tarlac.

In addition, Bais described the Hacienda Luisita issue as “a thorn in Noynoy’s bid for the presidency.”

Baptism of fire

Following his announcement that he is going to run for the presidency, Rep. Rafael Mariano of the party-list group Anakpawis said Aquino is going to get a baptism of fire especially on the decades long agrarian dispute in Hacienda Luisita.

“Hacienda Luisita is Senator Noynoy’s baptism of fire now that he has declared his bid for the presidency. We challenge him to act on the plight of Luisita farmers and farm workers,” Mariano said.

The militant lawmaker also raised the possibility that the Aquino-Cojuangco family could just convert the estate into other uses (such as the Luisita Mall and the Luisita Industrial Park) to raise money and pay its debts, which do not comply with their obligations under the agrarian reform program reported Inquirer.net.

“For generations, the Cojuangcos have benefited greatly from the Hacienda and labor of the farmers. It’s time they give it away, selling it or converting it will only aggravate the problems,” said Mariano.

In a report by gmanews.tv Mariano also stressed the Hacienda Luisita issue has become “a social justice issue.”

“This has become a life-and-death struggle of farm workers wanting to own the land they till. This is justice for those who died fighting for their rights to the land,” he said.

He also said Aquino’s uncles and aunts should also be ready to give up their rights over the land and give it to the farm workers for free “if they want to give social justice its true meaning.”

Deadline to farmers

The actuations of the Cojuangcos also increased the farmers’ uncertainties over Sen. Aquino’s pronouncements.

In a memorandum dated December 18, 2008 issued by Hernan Gregorio Jr., Hacienda Luisita, Inc.’s (HLI) assistant manager, management imposed an October 30, 2009 deadline for the farmers to leave the lands despite a pending case before the Supreme Court.

The Luisita farmers defied the deadline and launched protests actions before the local DAR office, the Cojuangco building in Makati, and inside the Hacienda.

Similarly, House Resolution 1129, seeking an inquiry on the “Luisita management’s act of demanding from farmers to desist from using, cultivating, planting or possessing the lands in order to determine its effect on the rights of farmers who now own and cultivate the lands upon the factual dissolution of the SDO” is still pending before the Lower House’s committee on agrarian reform.

Like the October 30 deadline, ULWU members have been defying the registration, said ULWU’s Bais in a report by the Inquirer.

“Signing up may be a ploy for another disadvantageous agreement like the SDO,” Bais said in a telephone interview yesterday.  Bais said the displacement in October was stopped because ULWU started a dialogue with the provincial DAR.

In a separate report by the Inquirer, Sen. Aquino denied having knowledge of the October 30 deadline set by the Luisita management an obvious attempt to deflect criticisms.

“Since we are already in November, obviously the information is incorrect. Please contact the company directly as they would have the pertinent data,” Aquino said.

He said that his lawyers were still checking how much of Hacienda Luisita his “part” of the Cojuangco clan actually owned. Aquino had earlier said that the Cojuangcos might have to sell the vast sugar plantation due to financial and labor troubles.

But the HLI management did not deny the existence of the memorandum and has, in fact, extended the deadline to November 15, Balita-dot-ph reported.

Tony Ligon, HLI spokesperson, said the Cojuangco-owned corporation extended its December 18, 2008 memorandum order to give farmers ample time to stay, and coordinate and register with a committee it created purportedly to “preserve the tone of peace, harmony and unity in HLI.”

Jose Romasanta, a close-in aide and former spokesman of former Philippine Olympics Commission (POC) Chair Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, who lived at Hacienda Luisita for almost two decades, clarified the order was an initiative of the Cojuangco clan, and not of the Department of Agrarian Reform.

In related developments, under the guise of hosting the 2014 Asian Games, Peping Cojuangco committed to donate five hectares of Hacienda Luisita for the projected billion-peso training center, Inquirer.net reported. This move by Cojuangco was perceived by farmers to be a political maneuver to circumvent agrarian reform and evade Luisita’s break up.

5 years after the carnage

This year’s commemoration of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre that happened five years ago highlights protests against the management’s November 15 deadline and press the Arroyo government to distribute the lands.

The farm workers gathered at the Gate 1 of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) where, five years ago, they and some 3,000 sugar mill workers staged an agrarian and labor strike after negotiations with the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) over distribution of lands and increase in wages and benefits had bogged down, reported inquirer.net.

“We don’t intend to cause trouble. We’re just here to remember those who died during and after the Luisita massacre,” said ULWU’s Bais. “We just want to pray for their souls and hail their sacrifices.”

In a report by manilastandardtoday.com Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas deputy secretary general Randall Echanis chided the Cojuangcos for being very insensitive.

“They are aware that November 16 marks the fifth year of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre and the farmers are still seeking justice,” Echanis said. “Their new deadline will surely face intensified resistance from the farmers.”

The Luisita management’s body language, coupled by Sen. Aquino’s continued dilly dallying and failure to address the issue demonstrates that the Cojuangco family will never let go of the hacienda.

Hacienda Luisita – a symbol of centuries-old feudal rule, social injustice, and agrarian unrest in the country – apparently becomes a heavy baggage to Sen. Aquino’s journey to the presidency. Unless he decisively confronts Hacienda’s long overdue distribution to the people behind the plow, the farmers the issue will continue to be a roadblock to his political ambition.

Photo: ‘Land to the tillers’ taken from arkibongbayan.org. Some rights reserved.