Hacienda Luisita still promised land for tillers

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:31:00 09/30/2009

LP standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s position to simply leave Hacienda Luisita runs counter to social justice and agrarian reform. The actuation of Hacienda Luisita’s management, giving farmers an Oct. 30, 2009 ultimatum “to discontinue and desist from using, cultivating, planting or possessing the lands,” shows that the Cojuangco-Aquino family will not let go of the property.

The “cultivation campaign” staged by Luisita farmers and farm workers, an initiative outside the bounds of the sham Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, is a concrete example of a farmer-led and people-backed agrarian reform. This campaign now covers more than 2,000 hectares of land.

The strong determination and collective action by the Luisita farmers demonstrate that genuine agrarian reform is possible, in fact doable, even outside of CARP’s coverage. It is peasant initiatives like this that House Bill 3059 (the Genuine Agrarian Reform bill), which seeks the free distribution of lands, aims to defend and amplify. Unfortunately, the recently extended CARP is an anti-thesis as it undermines and further criminalizes such peasant initiatives.

Secretary Nasser Pangandaman’s statement that the Department of Agrarian Reform’s hands are tied by the legal challenge that the Cojuangcos raised before the Supreme Court also proves the CARP’s inutility and further exposes the program’s purported and illusory compulsory acquisition.

Let us not also forget that the Cojuangco family acquired Hacienda Luisita in August 1957 (with $2.1 million from Manufacturer’s Trust Company of New York and Chase Manhattan Bank in the United States and P3.9 million from the Government Service Insurance System) on the condition and clear directive that after a certain period of time, the lands would be distributed to the agricultural workers in line with the social justice policy of the Magsaysay government.

In addition, in November 1957 and February 1958, the GSIS issued several resolutions asking the Cojuangcos to distribute the lands to agricultural workers. Also, in 1985, then Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Bernardo Pardo ordered the distribution of lands to agricultural workers.

As soon as Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino became president, her family managed to escape these imperatives by using the CARP’s non-land transfer provisions, particularly the notorious Stock Distribution Option scheme, never mind that she promised during her campaign to distribute Luisita. This is the reason why Hacienda Luisita remains a taint in the legacy of the icon of democracy.

With Senator Aquino’s still unclear platform on social justice and agrarian reform, Hacienda Luisita will literally remain a promised land to farmers and farm workers.

—RAFAEL “KA PAENG” V. MARIANO,
party-list representative, Anakpawis,
South Wing 602, House of Representatives,
Batasan Hills, Quezon City