Luisita agrees with DAR

MANILA, Philippines - Farm worker beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita must sign a written commitment to pay for the land that will be given to them.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said farmer beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita will only get their share after signing a written commitment to pay for the land and make it productive.

“If they will not promise such things to happen, then no land will be awarded to them,” he said.            

Antonio Ligon, Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) spokesman, said they agree with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that the requirement is reasonable and legally sanctioned.

“It must be understood that the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program entails responsibilities on all sectors – for government to see to it that it really alleviates or improves the plight of the farm workers, and for the latter to pay for the land and take care of it for their present and future benefit,” he said.

“In the exercise of eminent domain, the government gets the land from private owner, but with the required just compensation, in the same way that the beneficiaries are required to pay for it.”

The HLI owns the private land that the government will take and give to farmer beneficiaries, Ligon said.

De los Reyes said in the next two weeks, DAR personnel will go back to the 10 barangays in Hacienda Luisita to talk to farm worker beneficiaries and make them sign an “application to purchase” and a “farmers’ undertaking” of responsibility to develop the land they would receive.

Farmworkers would have to state the crops that they intend to plant and on which part of the hacienda, he added.

At least 6,212 farmers are in the official list of beneficiaries of the land distribution scheme for Hacienda Luisita.

The final master list was drawn up in accordance with the Supreme Court (SC)’s directive that only farmworkers actually working in the Hacienda under Luisita Tarlac Development Corp. as of 1989 can qualify as beneficiaries.

The beneficiaries were verified by thoroughly reviewing a list that Hacienda Luisita Inc. had submitted to the SC, containing the names of farmers who participated in the 1989 stock distribution option proceedings; all documents that farm workers had submitted to DAR; and documents that the DAR had acquired from the Social Security System.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) land in Hacienda Luisita must be distributed to the farmers without any payment.

They reminded De los Reyes that President Aquino’s family still owe the farm workers P1.3 billion and that they have eluded payment of the Central Bank-guaranteed loan in their acquisition of the hacienda.            

Antonio Flores of KMP said the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms law does not require farmers to sign an “application to purchase” and “farmers’ undertaking.”