Hundreds of Luisita farmers favor stock distribution

TARLAC CITY, Philippines – Hundreds of farmers working at the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) yesterday disclosed that they are in favor of the stock distribution plan and not the distribution of farmlands.

Jojo Zuñiga, spokesman for the group claiming as members some 7,441 legitimate Luisita farmers, told The STAR that they favor the stock distribution option (SDO) the HLI management had offered.

Zuñiga claimed that during the time of the late former President Corazon Aquino, the government conducted a referendum among Luisita farmers and a majority or almost all the legitimate farmers voted for the SDO.

The legitimate farmers are on the master list of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWA), he said.

He further said that the other group who call themselves Alyansang ng Mangbubukid ng Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) only has 179 farmers and most of them are not legitimate farm workers.

Noel Mallari, a former vice-chairman of AMBALA, said sometime in October 2004 the farmers filed their petition with HLI management regarding their problems over sharing and benefits.

Violence erupted at the hacienda in 2004 during a protest rally and several farmers were killed and several police officers were relieved after the bloody incident.

Mallari said that through SDO the farmers could be assured of their shares from the profits of HLI.

Guadencio Naguit, 67, a farmer from Barangay Pasajes, said they did not care about AMBALA’s push for land distribution since almost all of them they don’t want that.

Another farmer, Jesus Atienza, said that the SDO could protect their families.

The HLI reportedly has only 4,915.75 hectares of farmland and if the land is distributed to almost 10,000 farmers they will each get only about 4,000 square meters.

Hilario Santos, 70, of Barangay Motriko, said he started working at the hacienda in 1963 and he was satisfied with the management of HLI.

Another farmer, Lamberto Basa of Barangay Lourdes, was asking about the P150 million supposedly for the shares on the SDO last year, but they only received P20 million.

Basa said the remaining P130 million had not yet been paid to the hundreds of farmers.

Zuñiga said the legitimate farm workers would hold a rally in Manila to support the SDO.

Congressman urges P-Noy to give land

House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman urged President Aquino to convince his relatives to distribute lots of Hacienda Luisita to farmer-beneficiaries.

“If President Aquino truly wants Hacienda Luisita distributed to landless farm workers, then he must prevail upon his kin to transfer ownership of the controversial landholding to the agrarian beneficiaries, instead of instructing government officials to interpose a reconsideration of the Supreme Court (SC) directive for the holding of another referendum,” he said.

“It is only when the President refuses or fails to convince his relatives that a motion for reconsideration should be seasonably filed,” he said.

Lagman said the recent SC decision ordering a new referendum to determine again whether Luisita workers want the SDO or land distribution does not prohibit HLI owners from giving out the land.

“Land distribution is the only constitutional and available mode of implementing agrarian reform in Hacienda Luisita,” he stressed.

Malacañang said the President is pursuing a hands-off policy on the issue involving the family-owned sugar plantation and would leave it to the appropriate government agencies to do their job.

The Department of Agrarian Reform and the Office of the Solicitor General would file a motion asking the SC to reconsider its referendum decision.

Militant Luisita workers and allied organizations have denounced the SC for what they described as its ambivalent ruling, saying the tribunal should have ordered hacienda owners to distribute the land.

Lagman said land distribution is the only remaining option for the President’s relatives.

He said the SC has ruled that the new agrarian reform law, Republic Act 9700, has repealed the stock distribution option.

“The court rules that ‘for all intents and purposes, the stock distribution scheme under Section 31 of Republic Act 6657 is no longer an available option under existing law.’ Consequently, stock transfer has ceased to be an option,” he said.

He pointed out that the stock distribution option under Section 31 of the old law had likewise elapsed because Luisita owners failed to adopt a viable share dispersal plan within the required two-year period from the enactment of the law on June 10, 1988.

“Most importantly, under Section 4 or Article XIII of the Constitution, no other mode or option is constitutionally authorized or recognized except actual land distribution,” he said.

Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL) chairman Joseph Canlas, in an interview with The STAR, accused the Cojuangcos of being the “real outsider” at the hacienda which, he insisted, should have been turned over to the farmers way back in 1967.

“The Cojuangcos are always in amnesia about how they acquired the land,” he said.

Canlas was reacting to the statement of Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, the President’s uncle, that “leftists” who allegedly want to overthrow the Aquino government are instigating trouble at the hacienda.

Cojuangco said that 96 percent of hacienda workers favor the SDO and opposed land distribution.

Canlas said that the Cojuangcos and Aquinos are the real outsiders at Hacienda Luisita since they have not worked on the land.

Canlas said that the AMBALA is affiliated with the AMGL. –-Ric Sapnu (The Philippine Star) with Jess Diaz, Ding Cervantes