Luisita workers want DAR to revoke order, call for distribution of land

Hacienda Luisita farm workers petitioned the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to revoke a 15-year-old land-use conversion order it issued to Hacienda Luisita Inc. and called for the distribution of the lands to farmworkers.

In the petition filed by the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra), counsel for the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala), the farmworkers insisted that the Cojuangcos, President Aquino’s family, violated the terms and conditions of the order and that the 500-hectare lands covered remain undeveloped.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Danilo Ramos said “the DAR should not play blind and deaf on the violations of the Cojuangcos. It should not be a party to the continuing deception of the Cojuangcos to the farmworkers.”

“The Cojuangco-Aquinos’ bad practice of duping the farmworkers can be clearly seen in the conversion and sale of the 500-hectare lands without the knowledge and approval of the farmworkers who are the rightful owners of the lands. In fact, the Luisita farmworkers did not get even a single cent from the illegal sale and conversion of the lands,” Ramos said.

The petition cited that “on 14 August 1996, per DAR Conversion

Order No. 030601074-764-(95), Series of 1996, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) approved the application for conversion of the said 500 hectares.”

“It is clear that HLI had no intention of developing or converting the 500 hectares land subject of the DAR conversion order. For instead of ‘developing’ the same pursuant to their undertaking in the application for conversion, it merely caused them to be transferred to other family-owned corporations of the Cojuangcos, LIPCO, Centennary and LRC,” the petition states.

“Clearly, there is no other purpose for the transfer of ownership of the 500 hectares but to take the 500 hectares out of the coverage of the agrarian reform program. The transfer of ownership, which was also without the prior knowledge and approval of the DAR, is a clear violation of the conversion order,” it added.

“From 1996 until this date, despite the issuance of the order for conversion, the 500 hectares remained agricultural in use. Portion of the said land is being cultivated by the farm workers of HLI. Such being the case, there is no reason not to place the said landholding to the coverage of the agrarian reform program,” the petition states.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that some 4,000 hectares of Luisita should be distributed to the farmers as it revoked the stockholders option and for the Luisita management to pay the farmers what is due them.

It was after the Supreme Court ruled on this hacienda issue that President Aquino directed his congressional allies to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. –Benjamin B. Pulta with Jason Faustino, Daily Tribune