SC defers ruling on Hacienda Luisita case again

MANILA, Philippines -  The Supreme Court (SC) deferred action again yesterday on the long-standing dispute in Hacienda Luisita, the sugar land estate owned by the family of President Aquino in Tarlac.

In a full-court session, justices of the High Court failed to come up with a majority vote on the legality of earlier orders of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) and Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for the distribution of 6,453-hectare sugar plantation to the farmers and revocation of the stock distribution option (SDO) offered by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan to 10,000 farmers.

SC spokesman Midas Marquez said the court failed to put the issue to a vote after four justices submitted separate opinions.

“The fact that there was no majority vote means there are differences among justices on this case. But it is very difficult to say already that they are divided since there could be some opinions that might merge,” he said.

He said voting was reset to June 21, when only 13 justices will be casting their votes following the retirement of Associate Justices Antonio Eduardo Nachura last Friday and Conchita Carpio-Morales on Friday.

Marquez said Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. who is in charge of the case already has a draft decision, but refused to go into details.

Hacienda Luisita farmers from Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) picketed the SC building in Manila yesterday and reiterated their call for final resolution of the land dispute.

The farm workers urged the high tribunal to decide on the fate of the SDO scheme and not be swayed by the owners’ political maneuvers.

 “We are alarmed over information going around agrarian reform advocates that the Supreme Court will not decide on the issues raised, particularly the revocation of the SDO, but along the line of the owners’ insistence of conducting another referendum inside the Hacienda,” Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary-general Danilo Ramos said.

Ramos warned that “a failure by the Supreme Court to decide on the substantial issues that would benefit the Cojuangco-Aquinos will not end the decades-old agrarian conflict in Hacienda Luisita and would instead fuel another agrarian unrest.”           

Ramos said the six-year delay in the decision and the continuing inaction by the Supreme Court over the controversial SDO scheme only gave the Cojuangcos all the leeway for political maneuvers.            

The SDO implemented in Hacienda Luisita in 1989 merely distributed corporate shares to beneficiaries, in lieu of land redistribution.              

Ramos said, “The SDO scheme allowed the Cojuangcos to continue controlling the use, disposition and benefit from the fruits of the land.”             

 “The free distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmworkers is the only just and acceptable solution to the more than half-a-century-old agrarian dispute in the President’s Hacienda,” he added.– With Rhodina Villanueva