Noy welcomes hacienda accord; unions blast ‘deception’

President Aquino yesterday welcomed the compromise agreement between the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) management and its farmers that has been reportedly signed by the parties concerned notwithstanding the lingering contentions of other farm worker beneficiaries.

Aquino, through his spokesman, Edwin Lacierda, described this as a pleasant development and hoped that the Supreme Court (SC) will rule favorably on this agreement.

“The President has a very minimal interest, I think less than one percent, in Hacienda Luisita. The important thing there is to have a peaceful resolution. But he leaves the management of Hacienda Luisita to settle this problem with the farmer and the beneficiaries,” Lacierda said in a news conference at the Palace yesterday.

Lacierda, nonetheless, mentioned that Aquino is pretty much aware of the “broad

strokes” of the issue including HLI’s proposal that only one third of its farmlands should be distritued to the beneficiaries.

He added that Aquino has also been informed of a suggestion being floated that presents an option to the farmers whether to convert these portions of lands to cash or not just to reach a mutual agreement with their landlords.

Farm workers of the HLI led by their acting union leader, Lito Bais, have reportedly expressed disgruntlement over the issue as they have not been made aware of the proposals indicated in the said compromise agreement.

The HLI farm beneficiaries are said to be demanding for the distribution of 4,915 hectares out 6,500 hectares covered by the plantation as mandated by the Department of Agrarian Reform based on the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program instead of just 1,400 hectares that was specified in the reported deal.

Lacierda said they have already seen these particular dissensions from the farmers coming their way in view of the compromise agreement and so they would rather leave the final resolution of this problem to the judgment of the SC.

“We cannot discount the fact that other parties will not agree (on the proposals raised) but the position of many of the farm beneficiaries is to have a peaceful resolution. Let us allow the compromise agreement to go through. Let us allow the process to go through before the Supreme Court. Let it be reviewed by the Supreme Court on whether to uphold it. Only the Supreme Court can solve the problem in Hacienda Luisita,” he explained.

Lacierda, nonetheless, said they would like the SC to rule in their favor.

“Hopefully, the Supreme Court will look with favor on the compromise agreement. But certainly, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide…If it’s a compromise agreement and both parties expressed their willingness to settle and all the parties are involved in the settlement then we hope from that point on—without preempting the Supreme Court— they will reveal their compromise agreement and if it’s not contrary to law, it will be approved,” the Palace spokesman said.

But Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano yesterday said that Malacañang’s admission that Aquino is aware of the negotiations between the Cojuangco-Aquinos and the so-called farmworkers “makes the President equally liable in the grand deception and denial of the farmers’ rights to the land.”

Mariano made the statement after Lacierda said that Aquino’s “only input” was to tell his cousins he wanted the problem resolved.

“The President’s blessing to his cousins is instrumental in retaining the stock distribution option scheme and striking another highly disadvantageous deal against farmers. This exposes the greedy character of the Cojuangco-Aquinos,” said Mariano.

Mariano, chairman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, called on farmers and agrarian reform advocates across the country to condemn, expose, and oppose what he described as “the grand deception done by the Cojuangco-Aquinos to Luisita farmers.”

“This grandiose deception by the Cojuangco-Aquinos in Hacienda Luisita exposes what kind of agrarian reform will be implemented under the Aquino administration. This so-called deal is a lethal blow to the peasantry’s struggle for genuine agrarian reform,” the militant lawmaker said.

“Land distribution is a matter of right and justice for the farmers of Hacienda Luisita,” he said.

Under the proposed settlement, the 10,502 farmer-beneficiaries recognized by HLI would be allowed to choose whether to retain their shares under the SDO or surrender these in exchange for land and that only around 1,400 ha, out of the 6,500-ha hacienda, would be distributed because the farmers’ shares account for only a third of HLI’s total shares.

“In fact, the scheme has practically rendered impossible the break-up and distribution of the Luisita landholdings while at the same time the Cojuangco-Aquinos will again profit billions of pesos from a so-called sale with the government,” the Anakpawis lawmaker said.

Meanwhile, Hacienda Luisita based groups United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and Alyansa ng Mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala) representing over 10,000 farm worker beneficiaries in the 6,500 hectare sugar estate declared they will not enter into any compromise deal, as they denied for the second straight day that they were not privy of any “breakthrough agreement” between the management of the HLI and alleged farmer worker groups.

“Please allow us to set the record straight. We did not enter into any compromise deal with the camp of President Aquino. We are not begging for alms. President Aquino is lying. Everybody in the Cojuangco-Aquino camp is lying. This breakthrough compromise deal is nothing but a product of bed time story written by the feudal lords of Hacienda Luisita,” said Ambala chairperson Felix Nacpil in a statement.

In a rally at Don Chino Roces bridge (formerly Mendiola) yesterday morning attended by some over 1,000 peasant activists from Hacienda Luisita and Hacienda Yulo in Barangay Canlubang, Calamba City in Laguna province, KMP secretary general Danilo Ramos decried the “breakthrough deal” as patently illegal, unconstitutional and direct affront to the collective interest of farm worker beneficiaries.

The protest action in Mendiola coincided with the first year anniversary of the controversial Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with Reforms (Carper) law, which KMP and other anti-Carper groups said will be used by the Cojuangco-Aquino to set up their defense against the scrapping of SDO and the free distribution of Luisita lands to farm worker beneficiaries.

Ramos led his peasant colleagues in burning a photocopy and enlarged size of SDO and Carper law to symbolize the resistance against the bogus deal in Hacienda Luisita and the bankrupt extended land reform law.

Earlier, lawyer Jobert Ilarde Pahilga, executive trustee of Sentro Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra) and the legal counsel of the 10,000 Luisita farm worker beneficiaries, said his clients were not privy to the compromise deal as announced by the HLI management.

Pahilga noted that even while the case is pending at the Supreme Court, HLI management submitted lists and signatures of persons who supposedly wanted to continue with the SDO operation in the hacienda. But when Ambala and ULWU verified the lists and signatures, those persons who signed the document were already dead and some are not farmers or residents of Hacienda Luisita. –Aytch S. dela Cruz and Charlie V. Manalo, Daily Tribune