Supreme Court creates mediation panel on Hacienda Luisita case

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) has created a special panel that will mediate between the Cojuangco family that owns Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and its farmer beneficiaries to resolve the long-standing dispute in the sugar plantation through amicable settlement.

In a two-page resolution, the Court has named retired Associate Justice Alicia Austria-Martinez as chair of the panel and retired Justices Hector Hofilena and Teresita Dy-Liacco Flores of the Court of Appeals as members.

The SC also created a four-man secretariat to support the panel. The creation of the mediation panel stemmed from the oral arguments on the case last Aug. 24, where Chief Justice Renato Corona ordered the use of mediation in trying to resolve the case pending submission of necessary memoranda from parties.

In the same hearing, the government opened its doors to the compromise agreement that would resolve the case. Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz said the compromise deal submitted by HLI to the SC last Aug. 11 could be valid if it will be subjected to review of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) and approval of court-created alternative dispute resolution (ADR) panel.            

“My submission is that the parties must come up with an agreement which is not contrary to law, not contrary to public policy, not contrary to morals, and should be freely agreed upon by both parties. And I think that is something that can be explored,” he said during the oral arguments at the SC.

Cadiz, who claimed that he was not instructed by President Aquino to speak in favor of HLI, said the government is willing to explore the compromise agreement “with the help of the Court.”

Corona ordered the review of the case four years after it issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the distribution of parcels of land to farmers in compliance with the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).            

The farmer-beneficiaries asked the SC to recall the TRO it issued in June 2006 that stopped the orders of Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the distribution of the 6,453-hectare sugar plantation to the farmers and the revocation of the stock distribution option offered by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan to the 10,000 farmers.

The TRO was issued by Associate Justice Leonardo Quisumbing, who retired from the bench last Nov. 5.