MGA TANONG TUNGKOL SA HACIENDA LUISITA
Tula ni Jose Maria Sison

Kontribusyon sa Kultural na Pagtatanghal
ng Padiriwang ng Ika-25 Anibersaryo
ng Kilusang Pagbubukid ng Pilipinas

Hindi ba korupsyon na ang Hacienda Luisita
Nalipat sa mga kamay ng Cojuangco
Sa paggamit ng dolyar ng Bangko Sentral
Bunga ng impluwensiya ni Ninoy Aquino
At pangakong ipasa sa magbubukid ang lupa?

Hindi ba korupsyon na ang Hacienda Luisita
Iginawan ng paraan ni Cory Cojuangco-Aquino
Para manatili sa kamay ng pamilya
Sa lalang ng maliliit na sapi sa korporasyon
Sa halip ng makatarungang reporma sa lupa?

Hindi ba korupsiyon na ang Hacienda Luisita
Mananatiling gatasan ng mga korporasyong
Magkakamag-anak at magkakasabwat,
Ipagpapatuloy ng tusong Noynoy Aquino
Ang pagbigo ng reporma sa lupa?

 

Hindi ba paglabag sa karapatang tao
Na sa malaong panahon pinagsamantalahan
Ang mga magbubukid ng Hacienda Luisita,
Binabarat sa tubuhan at sentral ang pasahod
At ginigipit ang palayan at ibang halaman?

Hindi ba paglabag sa karapatang tao
Na sa tuwing pagsisikap na mag-organisa
Ang masang naghihirap sinusugpo,
Walang awang pinapalayas at pinapaslang
Ng mga halimaw sa mataas na burol?

Hindi ba paglabag sa karapatang tao
Ang masaker at mga kasunod ng pagpaslang
Na gawa ng armado ng asyenda at estado
At ang panlilinlang na ang mga biktima
Ang may sala sa pagdanak ng kanilang dugo?

Streetwise:

The Cojuangco compromise agreement

by Carol  P. Araullo

The so-called compromise agreement announced by the management of the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) comes ahead of an upcoming decision of the Supreme Court on the legality of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) decision to revoke the 16-year-old stock distribution option (SDO). The SDO took the place of outright distribution of land to the hacienda farm workers as mandated by the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL).

A close study of the agreement reveals that it does not address any of the grounds cited by the PARC as to why the SDO is illegal and grossly inimical to the interests of the farm workers. Worse it allows the continuation of the SDO under even more onerous terms, lays the ground for continuing agrarian unrest at the hacienda and provides ample fuel to the raging agrarian-based armed conflict nationwide.

Land reform at Hacienda Luisita was subverted twice during the administration of Pres. Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, herself part-owner of the hacienda.

A 1985 Manila RTC decision ordering the Cojuangcos to turn over control of the hacienda lands to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform for distribution was pending at the Court of Appeals. In 1988, the Aquino government filed a motion to dismiss the civil case against the Cojuangcos on the ground that Hacienda Luisita would be covered by agrarian reform anyway. The case was dismissed.

In 1988, the agrarian reform law legislated under the Aquino watch included the SDO scheme that permitted the distribution of shares of stock in a corporation dominated by landowners instead of actual land distribution to farm workers.

In Hacienda Luisita, a referendum was held in 1989 wherein farm workers were said to have overwhelmingly voted for the SDO. Land reform was thus effectively circumvented and the Cojuangcos hold on the estate perpetuated.

In 2003, leadership over the two major unions in the hacienda passed on to the hands of officials who were not beholden to the hacienda owners. Petitions were filed at the DAR to revoke the SDO because it grossly failed to improve the lot of the supposed agrarian reform beneficiaries and in fact, actually worsened it.

In 2004, the joint massive strike by the hacienda farm workers and the sugar mill workers took place due to the illegal dismissal of 327 farm workers and a deadlock in the CBA between management and sugar mill workers union. The violent dispersal of the strikers by soldiers, police and hacienda security guards caused the death of seven strikers and injuries to many others.

Prior and subsequent extrajudicial killings of church people, local government officials and other supporters of the struggling hacienda and azucarera workers upped the ante by way of human rights violations related to the hacienda dispute.

National and international condemnation of the massacre and other human rights violations together with government’s failure to end the oppressive feudal system holding sway at Hacienda Luisita pushed the Arroyo government to respond to the farmers’ demand to end the SDO.

DAR undertook a factual investigation and a legal study of the HLI SDO that resulted in the 2005 PARC resolution revoking it and placing the hacienda under the compulsory coverage of CARP. However in 2006, the HLI was able to get a temporary restraining order from the Supreme Court that kept the DAR and PARC from terminating the SDO.

Even on the basis of DAR and PARC findings alone, the legal and moral grounds for annulling the SDO are more than compelling.
 

First of all, shares of stock were not distributed outright to the more than 5000 beneficiaries as provided by law but were programmed to be parceled out over 30 years on the basis of “man days” or the number of hours a worker works in a year at the hacienda, something that was entirely under the discretion and control of management.

If the farm worker had no "man days " for one reason or another, he could not earn or be issued a share of stocks.
A farm worker who is separated, terminated or dismissed earlier for any reason will no longer receive any shares of stocks and ceases to be a shareholder.

On the other hand, management can continue to hire workers as they please and thereby bloat the number of “stockholders” to their liking, to the prejudice of the original farm workers in the hacienda.

Secondly, the HLI has not given a single cent of dividends to the farm workers cum supposed stockholders.

Whatever “added benefits” the farm workers received from HLI, such as the 3% share from gross production and home lots, are in fact not due from the SDO but from other provisions of the agrarian reform law.

Thirdly, contrary to the provisions of the SDO Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to keep the agricultural lands intact and unfragmented, the HLI management converted 500 hectares for industrial and commercial purposes. It gave the farm worker-stockholders a pittance for their share in the sale of this parcel of land. Subsequently more land was disposed of without benefitting the hacienda workers.

But more than anything else, what is beyond dispute is that the lives of farm workers and their families did not improve; instead, they were pushed deeper into poverty and misery by the one-sided SDO.

The so-called new compromise agreement bears all the hallmarks of HLI management’s manipulation and deception. Apart from questions about whether the HLI had any right to initiate and preside over such an agreement when PARC had already revoked the SDO, there is the nagging question about whether any form of coercion, duress or misrepresentation attended this management-engineered agreement.

In truth, this “agreement” is so patently against the interests of the form workers. It upholds the discredited and rejected SDO. It swindles the farm workers by arbitrarily allotting only one third of the remaining 4,102 hectares of agricultural land for distribution. Furthermore it deprives the farm workers from ever questioning any violations that may have happened in the past or may arise in the future in relation to the 1989 SDO MOA.

President “Cory” Aquino, sadly, presided over the emasculation of agrarian reform and allowed her relatives to take undue advantage of the law’s loopholes to retain their hold over HLI.

President “Noynoy” Aquino, her son, is today burdened by this odious legacy, just as he is challenged to set this historical injustice to right.

His pretense that he has nothing to do with the “agreement” and his obvious lack of interest in using his vast powers to see social justice reign in his family’s hacienda exposes his glaring unconcern for the poor and downtrodden peasantry who make up a majority of the people in this country. #

August 12, 2010

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Cojuangco-Aquinos Denounced for Using Millions to Lure, Deceive Luisita Farm Workers

By RONALYN V. OLEA
Ulwu chairman Lito Bais said the financial package from Hacienda Luisita management was meant to lure farm workers into the compromise-agreement bait. “They exploited the poverty of the farm workers and used money to deceive them,” he said. Bais also accused the Cojuangco-Aquinos of “hoodwinking” farm workers of hundreds of millions from earlier land deals.

In Crafting ‘Sham’ Deal, Cojuangco-Aquinos Turned to Leaders Who Had Earlier Betrayed Farm Workers

By RONALYN V. OLEA
Kicked out of farmers’ groups and the workers’ union in Hacienda Luisita, the two key signatories in the compromise agreement supposedly representing the farmer beneficiaries have a history of betrayal against the farm workers and collaboration with the Cojuangco-Aquinos.

Militarization, Harassment Intensified in Luisita in Run-Up to Signing of ‘Sham Deal’

By MARYA SALAMAT
Weeks before the management of Hacienda Luisita announced the signing of the controversial “compromise agreement” with farm workers, the villages in and around the sugar plantation owned by President Benigno S. Aquino III and his family were subjected to militarization, the kind that sowed fear among the residents, particularly those opposed to the stock distribution option. Video Sidebar: Military Tries to Intimidate Luisita Farmers

Luisita Deal ‘a Travesty of Social Justice’

By RONALYN V. OLEA
Jobert Pahilga, lawyer of the farm workers’ group Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (Ambala), enumerates some of the provisions of the compromise agreement that are inimical to the interest of the farm workers.

Hacienda Luisita’s SDO: A Deceitful Scheme (A Video Primer)

Jobert Ilarde Pahilga, the lawyer of Hacienda Luisita farmers challenging the stock distribution option (SDO) being implemented in the plantation owned by the family of President Benigno S. Aquino III, explains in this “video primer” the SDO, why the Cojuangco-Aquino family was hell-bent on it, why the lives of the farmers did not improve in spite of it, and why these farmers and peasants are opposed to it. Watch the video

Cojuangco-Aquinos Used ‘Impostors’ Who Misrepresented Luisita Workers in ‘Sham’ Deal

By RONALYN V. OLEA
“We will definitely question in all forums available to us the standing of these individuals with whom HLI management negotiated and hold them accountable for their acts,” said Jobert Ilarde Pahilga, a lawyer for the farm workers.
Related Items
Sidebar: A History of Deception in Hacienda Luisita | Sidebar: President Aquino Can Be Held Equally Liable for ‘Grand Deception’ vs. Luisita Farmers | Previous story: ‘Breakthrough Deal’ Is a Lie Meant to Sway Supreme Court Decision on Hacienda Luisita, Say Farmers | Previous story: How Hacienda Luisita Stock Scheme Led to Farmers’ Misery | Read the compromise agreement | Full coverage: Hacienda Luisita

November 16, 2004 – Violent dispersal of striking workers leave seven (7) dead, scores were injured.This has been known as the infamous Hacienda Luisita Massacre

November 22, 2004 – the DAR issues Special Order No. 789 which called for the strengthening of theTask Force Stock Distribution Option through the PARC Secretariat

November 25, 2004 – The DAR task force stock distribution, later renamed Task Force Luisita, convenes for the first time to discuss the petitions by Luisita supervisors and farm workers. Prior thereto, HLI filed with the DAR its answer to the petition/protest filed by the supervisory group.

March 15, 2005 – DAR deploys 10 teams to 10 barangays within the hacienda to conduct focusgroup discussions with 453 farmers concerning their understanding of SDO, the supposed benefitsthereof, the home lots and other provisions of the agreement, their recommendations on the SDO, andto determine whether there is truth to the allegations of the farm workers that they have been pusheddeeper into the quagmire of poverty by the SDO and MOA.

July 2005 – Task Force Luisita submits its report on findings and recommendations to DAR SecretaryNasser C. Pangandaman especially as regards the investigation conducted on March 15, 2005

August 2005 – Pangandaman creates a special legal team to review the legal issues in the task force’sreport

September 23, 2005 – DAR special legal team submits its terminal report on the two petitions, recommending the revocation of the 16‐year‐old SDO agreement in Hacienda Luisita

December 23, 2005 – PARC issues Resolution No. 2005‐32‐01 which recalled/revoked the SDO plan ofTADECO/HLI and placed the lands subject SDO plan under the compulsory coverage scheme of theCARP

January 3, 2006 – HLI files its motion for reconsideration of the said resolution

February 2006 – Despite the pendency of the Motion for Reconsideration it has filed, HLI files apetition for certiorari and prohibition against the PARC et al., before the Supreme Court

May 3, 2006 – PARC denies the motion for reconsideration of HLI

June 2006 – Supreme Court issues a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) which enjoins PARC andDAR to implement/execute the resolution revoking the SDO

July 2010 – Supreme Court sets case for oral arguments

August 3, 2010 – SC moves oral arguments to Aug. 18

August 6, 2010 – HLI and unauthorized representatives of AMBALA and ULWU sign compromise agreement

August 11, 2010 – HLI submits compromise agreement to Supreme Court for its approval

Download video clip of Sermon from the movie SAKADA

SAKADA  is a movie on agrarian unrest. It was shown only for a day in 1976 because the dictator Marcos banned it. Government operatives confiscated the tapes. It was only years after EDSA II that it was available for public showing again.