No eviction coming for Luisita illegals, Aquino promises

SENATOR Benigno Aquino III yesterday denied that the family-owned Hacienda Luisita is poised to evict 5,000 “illegal” farmers and assailed leftist groups for using the issue against him now that he is running for president.

Days after maintaining that he had very little to do with the management of the 4,500-hectare family estate, Aquino said he would not allow anything to hurt the interest of farmers.

He also vowed to sell his stake in the agro-industrial estate if he was elected president.

“Nobody is being evicted,’’ he told Standard Today at the induction of local political leaders who have defected to the Liberal Party.

“The report that farmers are being threatened with eviction is wrong. But I would not want to dignify their propaganda, which is really [the leftist groups’] agenda.”

Days earlier, Aquino declined to comment on Hacienda Luisita’s plans, saying an ongoing court case prevented him from doing so.

A spokesman for Hacienda Luisita Inc., Antonio Ligon, who had earlier told reporters that the company would take legal steps to evict “trespassers” from the estate, yesterday said no such program was in place.

He said the company was merely doing an inventory of sugarcane farmers and sugar mill workers.

“This is just like registration of voters,’’ he said.

“We want to determine who are the legitimate beneficiaries, who are really tilling the land where they are residing.”

Ligon denied reports that farmers who would fail to register by the Nov. 15 deadline would be evicted, adding that the management could always extend the deadline. He laughed off reports that 5,000 farmers are in danger of being thrown out.

“Why should we think of evicting farmers when we know that this will hurt Senator Aquino’s presidential candidacy? That sounds illogical,” said Ligon, who at first refused to say who the officers of Hacienda Luisita were.

A check with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows the hacienda is owned and controlled by Senator Aquino’s uncles and aunts on his mother’s side. Pedro Cojuangco, the eldest brother of the late President Corazon Aquino, is company president.

Ligon later sent a list of officers that included Ernesto Teopaco as vice president, Emmanuel Cochico as corporate secretary, and Eufrocinio de la Merced as treasurer.

The Aquinos, who owned only 4 percent, did not have a representative on the board, Ligon said.

Aquino said his main interest was to see to it that all legitimate farmer-beneficiaries would get back their jobs.

He said his mother divested herself of her interest in the farm when she became president.

When he and his sisters were told by family lawyers about their interest in Hacienda Luisita, it turned out that “it is now a very small portion.”

Records with the Securities and Exchange Commission did not even list the Aquinos as shareholders.

Former Batanes Rep. Florencio Abad, LP national campaign manager, said Aquino and his sisters were only one among six shareholders of Hacienda Luisita Corp.

The property was not parceled out and distributed to tenant-farmers during the Aquino administration, and even if it was covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Instead, the farmers agreed to a stock distribution option where they became part owners of the agri-industrial estate and entitled to dividends from corporate profits.

Aquino said tenant-landowner relations ceased to exist as a result of the stock distribution scheme.

Asked if he intended to sell his share in the estate, Aquino said he wanted to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on the stock distribution plan’s legality.

“I am not required to divest at this point in time. But if I become president, I have to divest,” he said.

Aquino also took exception to the criticism of Anakpawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano, president of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, that his family was cashing in on the so-called pro-landlord provisions of the revised agrarian reform law passed in July.

“Remember, I inhibited myself from participating in the debate on the CARP bill and I abstained from the voting,’’ he said.

“Maybe the farmers who are saying that were allies of those who voted against the new CARP law.”

Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada, LP spokesman, said the new law in fact did not allow stock distribution as an option. –Fel V. Maragay, Manila Standard Today