DAR recommends scrapping of Luisita’s stock option plan

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) recommended yesterday the "total scrapping" of the stock distribution option (SDO) scheme of the Cojuangco family-owned Hacienda Luisita sugar estate in Tarlac.

This in effect puts the 5,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) within the next two months if the DAR pushes through with the distribution of the sugar lands to its workers.

DAR officer-in-charge Nasser Pangandaman made the announcement yesterday in formally turning over their recommendations to the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC).

"The DAR is constrained, following a thorough review of the circumstances and evidences, to recommend to the PARC executive committee (the) recall of the stock distribution plan (SDP) or the total scrapping of the said plan (in the Hacienda Luisita) for distribution of the lands to the qualified beneficiaries," he told a news conference.

Pangandaman formally turned over its terminal report and documentary evidence to PARC secretariat director Atanacia Guevarra.

"We will check the schedules of the members of the PARC and hopefully call for them to convene to tackle this issue in the nearest time from today," Guevarra said.

"If there would be no problem, then the PARC could decide with finality on this issue within October," she said.

Pangandaman said the DAR would immediately issue a notice of coverage to Hacienda Luisita once the PARC board en banc upholds the agency’s recommendation enabling the 6,000 farm workers to take over the sugar estate firm.

DAR Central Luzon director Boy Nieto, for his part, said the regional office is prepared to execute the recommendation and distribute the lands to the farmer-beneficiaries at any time.

"I am very optimistic that the PARC will sustain our recommendation," Nieto said. "This decision is the DAR’s decision, and I will stand by it no matter what."

During the news conference, Pangandaman denied allegations that their recommendations were a form of political reprisal against former President Corazon Aquino, whose family owns the 5,000-hectare sugar plantation.

The former president led various sectors and the opposition in calling for President Arroyo’s resignation last July 8.

Mrs. Arroyo is the chairwoman of the PARC, which could uphold or reject the DAR recommendation. The DAR recommendation only becomes final and executory if sustained by the PARC in an en banc session.

The PARC is composed of 24 government agencies, which includes the DAR, Departments of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Agriculture, Finance, and Budget and Management, and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). These government agencies are tasked with the implementation of the CARP.

"I appeal to the people to not put political color on this issue," Pangandaman said.

"The investigation we conducted was very objective, transparent and thorough. We only did our job," he said.

Sources earlier leaked the 19-page terminal report from the DAR’s Task Force HLI (Hacienda Luisita Inc.) and its special legal team.

The report cited violations allegedly committed by HLI in the implementation of the SDP/SDO.

Pangandaman stressed the basis of the DAR recommendation was the numerous violations by the HLI in the implementation of the SDO.

Pangandaman particularly raised the miserable plight of the farmers in the hacienda during 16 years under the SDO scheme.

The SDO had floated a promise of improved lives for the sugar workers but Pangandaman said most of them toiled in the sugar plantation seven days a week and merely got a net pay of P10.

"Such incidents were only among the many arguments used by the DAR to support (our) recommendation for the total scrapping of the SDO scheme," Pangandaman said. "That (scheme) plainly went against the very purpose of the RA 6657, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL)," he pointed out.

The DAR likewise found HLI’s alleged non-compliance with several provisions in the Administrative Order No. 10, which embodies the implementation of the sugar corporation-proposed SDO, specifically on profitability, increased income and greater benefits for the farm workers; and on keeping the involved agricultural land "unfragmented."

The DAR said that the farmers were "misled into believing the HLI through its carefully-worded (proposals)."

The HLI has claimed that it has been incurring losses over the years while it managed to carve out some 500 hectares of the property for land conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural uses.

"(But) I don’t think the Hacienda Luisita is losing," Pangandaman said.

But Nieto pointed out the entire Hacienda Luisita might just not be up for distribution because 500 hectares of the land have been converted.

Nieto said that the converted area would be sliced from the original area size of the sugar estate, leaving the 7,000 farmer beneficiaries to divide among themselves the remaining 4,300 hectares of the land.

The HLI was allowed to convert 500 hectares of the sugar plantation, but has so far converted only around half of the total.

With the DAR recommendation, Nieto said the conversion of some 250 hectares could still be recalled as well, especially since its conversion period already lapsed despite a pending petition filed by the HLI for an extension of time for the development of the remaining unconverted area.

"Definitely, the HLI petition for the extension of time before the DAR would be affected by this (recommendation)," Nieto said.

On the other hand, Vigor Mendoza, the counsel and spokesman for the HLI, said they would immediately discuss their next steps to contest the DAR recommendation.

Mendoza said they are planning to question the recommendation before the PARC and insist the issue should be settled in court.

He also stressed the HLI have always been supportive of the benefits and claims by the farm workers in deciding for themselves what is in their best interests.

Mendoza said the DAR recommendation was merely based on "focused group discussions which are not representative of the true will of the people."

He said only a few hundred participated in the discussions out of the more than 11,000 farm worker-beneficiaries.

"It’s important for HLI to ascertain the truth as to what the people want in order to have a final, long lasting and peaceful solution to the problem of Hacienda Luisita," Mendoza said.

Mendoza claimed the HLI has been faithfully submitting its annual compliance reports to DAR.

"If truly the compliance was unsatisfactory, why raise it only after 16 years when any defect could have been cured on day one?" he asked.

Former president Aquino, for her part, claimed not to be bothered by the developments.

Mrs. Aquino noted their family received the same threat during the regime of strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Asked by reporters why she did not seem bothered by the developments, Mrs. Aquino replied: "Alangan naman na mag-iiyak ako (What do you want me to do, cry over it)?"