The Philippine Online Chronicles

Now that Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Cojuangco Aquino is inexorably bound for the presidency, it is an opportune time to revisit his varying – sometimes, conflicting – campaign statements and commitments regarding Hacienda Luisita, the 6,453-hectare hacienda in Tarlac of which the Cojuangco clan claims ownership.

Hacienda Luisita, the country's second biggest family-”owned” plantation, will be an acid test for Aquino and how he will position himself on the matter of land reform – a major policy issue affecting some 75 percent of the country's population.

Near the beginning of the national electoral campaign, Noynoy said he is open to talking to his relatives about redistributing Hacienda Luisita. The he claimed there is nothing much he can do about the issue since he “owns” only 4 percent of the hacienda. Then he promised to redistribute it by 2014, the deadline for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with Reforms (CARPER) Law. He next said the family does not want to redistribute the land pending the payment of all the landholding's debts. Now he says he is leaving the courts to decide on the matter.

In the first place, it is not a mere option for Noynoy to be “open” to talking to his family about redistributing Hacienda Luisita. How much of the hacienda he really owns is not an issue. The redistribution of the hacienda need not – and should not – wait until 2014. The family can, and should, redistribute the land without passing on the debts to the beneficiaries. And the Hacienda Luisita question, in the final analysis, is not something that Noynoy can just leave to the courts.

What is now known as Hacienda Luisita was a Spanish-owned property before falling into the hands of the American company that managed the Compañia General de Tabacos de Filipinas, or Tabacalera. In 1957, a group of agricultural businessmen led by Jose “Don Pepe” Cojuangco Sr. negotiated with Tabacalera for the purchase of the land.

Early that year, then-President Ramon Magsaysay had advised Cojuangco’s son-in-law Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., then mayor of Concepcion, Tarlac, to convince his father-in-law to purchase the land. This, Magsaysay said, was to avoid the possibility of its falling into the hands of the Lopez clan of Negros, who were the president's political rivals.

The negotiations between Cojuangco's group and Tabacalera eventually yielded an agreement that stipulated, first, the Cojuangcos' full purchase of the land – including fixed improvements, quota rights, and all instruments mentioned in the contract; and second, the Cojuangcos' acquisition of 70 percent of the shares in Central Azucarera de Tarlac, which was then owned by Tabacalera and a few individual businessmen living in Spain.

Cojuangco immediately sought approval of the transaction from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP or Central Bank of the Philippines). He also requested authority to borrow the needed funds for this from foreign institutions.

The BSP approved the Cojuangcos' purchase of the land on Aug. 27, 1957 through Resolution No. 1240, which at the same time instructed them to eventually redistribute the land in line with the Magsaysay administration's “Social Justice Policy.”

With loans from the Manufacturer's Trust Company of New York, the Chase Manhattan Bank, and the Government Service Insurance System, amounting to a total of USD2.13 million, Cojuangco purchased the land. The GSIS issued Resolution No. 320 (dated Nov. 25, 1957) and Resolution No. 356, instructing the Cojuangcos to redistribute the land to the tenants and farm workers by 1967.

In 1967, farm workers and residents of the villages covered by Hacienda Luisita, led by Barangay (village) Captain Cecilio Sumet of Motrico, staged protest actions to demand that the Cojuangcos redistribute the land. Sumet was abducted and slain in December that year. The incident caused demoralization among the residents.

In 1977, farm workers led by Bonifacio Navarro sent a petition to the Marcos government demanding the implementation of the BSP's Resolution No. 1240, prompting the regime through the BSP, the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, and the GSIS to file a case against the Cojuangcos. In 1985, Judge Bernardo Pardo of the Manila Regional Trial Court, Branch XLII, ruled in favor of redistribution. But the Cojuangco family filed an appeal.

In 1986, Don Pepe’s daughter Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, wife of Ninoy, took over after Marcos’s ouster in a popular uprising. Two years later, she launched the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which she took pride in as the centerpiece of her administration. She however exempted Hacienda Luisita from the loophole-ridden CARP, instead placing it under a stock distribution option (SDO) that supposedly made the farmers investors in – as opposed to owners of – the hacienda, which was never the intention of a genuine land reform program.

In 2004, the Hacienda Luisita management dismissed 176 seasonal and 150 permanent farm workers, all members of the ULWU. This was after a series of collective bargaining agreement negotiations (CBA) that started in July that same year bogged down. They were dismissed for refusing a forced-retirement scheme that included gratuity pay and a bonus of P50,000. Their dismissal was to take effect on Oct. 1 that year.

The ULWU sent a notice of strike on Sept. 30 to protest the dismissal of its 326 members. It sent another notice of strike on Oct. 22 that same year, citing this time the management's refusal to negotiate, which resulted in a CBA deadlock.

On Nov. 6, after a series of consultations, the ULWU decided to stage a strike to demand the reinstatement of 73 members who had not received their gratuity pay, as well as the confirmation of their CBA demands that included wage increases and additional work days (they were being made to work only one day a week, with wages amounting to only P9.50 a day), and hospital benefits.

Besides these, they also demanded the revocation of the SDO and the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita.

They were joined in the strike by the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), the union of Hacienda Luisita’s sugar mill workers, whose CBA negotiations had also failed after the management refused their demand for a P150 increase in daily wages, instead offering only a P12 increment.

The Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), under then Sec. Patricia Sto. Tomas, soon assumed jurisdiction following a petition submitted by the Cojuangcos, and for the next several days, the protesters faced three dispersal attempts by a combined police and military contingent. But they stood their ground.

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On that fateful day, Nov. 16, 2004, the workers fought back as the police and the soldiers repeatedly pushed them and sprayed them with water and tear gas. A barrage of bullets then sent them scampering for safety. Seven strikers lay dead and 181 more were wounded after the shooting, which lasted for two minutes.

The killings caught the attention of Congress, which conducted an investigation, and the international community. The violence was widely condemned in the Philippines and abroad.

In 2005, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) ordered that the SDO for Hacienda Luisita be revoked and that the land be redistributed to farm-worker beneficiaries. A resolution issued by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) upheld the DAR order later that year.

On June 14, 2006, however, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), following a petition filed by the management of Hacienda Luisita.

The Cojuangcos continue to “own” Hacienda Luisita only through their powerful combination of political influence and legal maneuvering. With or without the debts, they have no right to hold on to the hacienda a minute longer.

Noynoy, as the incoming president, had better take the lead in giving Hacienda Luisita to its rightful owners. It is not a mere option for him: it is a matter of duty.

Photos from POC files. Some rights reserved.