SC asked to nullify Luisita stock option recall

A firm controlled by former President Corazon Aquino’s family asked the Supreme Court yesterday to stop the government from placing the vast sugar estate which they control under agrarian reform.

In an 88-page petition, Hacienda Luisita Inc. sought a temporary restraining order against Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council from implementing a PARC resolution, dated Dec. 22, 2005, placing the more than 4,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac under mandatory coverage of Republic 6657, which initiated the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Through its lawyer, former Presidential Commission on Good Government chairman Magdangal Elma, HLI asked the SC to revoke the notice of coverage to Hacienda Luisita, dated Jan. 22, 2005.

Emmanuel Cochico, HLI corporate secretary, said the annulment of the SDO must be done through proper action in court and not through an administrative body like the PARC.

"There is simply no law allowing such retaking… of the agricultural land of Hacienda Luisita," he said.

"Can the respondent PARC retake or re-CARP said land without such a law? The PARC resolution does not partake of the nature of a judicial decision that is beyond the reach of said constitutional prohibition against impairment of the obligation of contracts."

The PARC’s revocation of the SDO violated the Cojuangcos’ constitutional right against deprivation of property without due process of law, as well as the impairment of contractual rights and obligations under the Bill of Rights, he added.

Cochico said unlike the Department of Agrarian Reform, which is conferred with quasi-judicial powers, the law does not grant PARC quasi-judicial powers.

"Thus, it is purely an administrative body which is, however, higher than the DAR, it being composed of the President of the Philippines as chairman and the secretaries of some executive departments as members," he said. — Jose Rodel Clapano