Luisita row, Aquino divide leftist groups

LEFTIST party-list groups are divided over a dispute at the Hacienda Luisita, the candidacy of Senator Benigno Aquino III, one of its owners, and the future of agrarian reform.

Labor and peasant groups yesterday accused Aquino of declaring “all-out war” on farmers and said the Cojuangco family to which he belonged was reaping benefits from the pro-landlord provisions in the new agrarian reform law.

“Senator Aquino’s response to demands for social justice is totally disgusting,’’ said Randall Echanis, deputy secretary general of the peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas.

“It is an insult to Luisita farmers’ just and legitimate demand for genuine agrarian reform. In fact, it’s a declaration of war against farmers.”

But Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros, one of the principal authors of the law and a senatorial candidate under Aquino’s Liberal Party, defended the senator.

“What pro-landlord provisions? Noynoy [Aquino] has not declared war on farmers,” she said, contradicting her colleague in Anakpawis, Rep. Rafael Mariano, who criticized a Hacienda Luisita plan to evict some 5,000 “illegal” farmers.

The LP camp said the party-list groups were “sour-graping” after the party refused to give them seats in its senatorial slate.

Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo admitted that he had held talks with Aquino, but that negotiations had bogged down.

The LP chose to take in Hontiveros of Akbayan instead.

Mariano and lawmakers from Bayan Muna and Gabriela opposed the passage of the bill extending the agrarian reform law, saying it weakened the program.

The word war erupted after Hacienda Luisita said it would evict some 5,000 “trespassers” on its estate after Nov. 15.

Only farmer-beneficiaries and their families, who are covered by a stock distribution plan, would be allowed to stay.

Mariano sidestepped the issue of legality and trained his guns on Aquino and the Cojuangco family.

“The Cojuangcos are now exploiting one of the most anti-farmer loopholes of the sham CARPER [Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms],” Mariano said, referring to a provision in the law that gives landlords “the power to identify farmer-beneficiaries.”

But a Hacienda Luisita spokesman sought to insulate the senator from the attacks.

“Noynoy has nothing to do with the operations of Hacienda,’’ Antonio Ligon told Standard Today.

“I just hope these groups stop politicizing the issue because it was the real farmer-beneficiaries that sought the help of the hacienda management after several farmers that are not from the hacienda or outsiders were found to be tilling the land.”

Ligon said only 35 percent of the farm‘s 4,500 hectares were planted to sugarcane, while 65 percent were planted to rice, corn and other crops, which were now owned by the farmer-beneficiaries through the stock distribution option.

But some farmers opted to rent out the land to outsiders, which Mariano’s group claims are real farmer-beneficiaries.

But Hontiveros said the law prohibited farmer-beneficiaries from renting out or selling land after it was awarded to them.

“In fact, landowners can be penalized if they allow the farmer-beneficiaries to sell or rent out their land,” Hontiveros said.

Ligon said this was one reason Hacienda Luisita decided to ask farmer-beneficiaries to register.

Mariano insisted that the farm workers facing eviction were legitimate farmer-beneficiaries.

“The Cojuangcos should stop bragging about the so-called 96 percent who voted in favor of the SDO [stock distribution option] in 1989. It is an open book that the farmers were under duress when the bogus referendum was done,” Mariano said.

The deputy secretary of the farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Randall Echanis, chided Aquino for saying the left was using the issue against him.

“The Cojuangcos are really 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.” –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today