Hacienda Luisita: Thwarting social justice over 45 years

What’s the significance of the Supreme Court’s unanimous “final and executory” ruling last April 24, ordering the distribution of 4,915 hectares of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. land to 6,296 farmworker-beneficiaries?

 The ruling ended — or so it is hoped! — 45 years of waiting by the farmworkers to own the land that was to have been given to them, at cost, 10 years after Jose Cojuangco Sr. (P-Noy’s grandfather) bought it with government financial support in 1957.

 Or — to drive the point sharply! — it ended 45 years of maneuvering by the Cojuangcos that thwarted the dispensation of social justice, the essence of the government’s objective in supporting the land purchase.

Why maneuvering to thwart social justice? Consider the following facts and judge for yourself. (Data culled mainly from a GMATV News team timeline compiled in 2010.)

1. In 1882 the Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas (Tabacalera), founded by a Spaniard, Antonio Lopez, acquired the hacienda. He named the estate after his wife, Luisa Bru.

2. In 1957 problems with the Huk rebellion impelled Tabacalera to sell HL and the sugar mill Central Azucarera de Tarlac. President Ramon Magsaysay, godfather in the wedding of Ninoy Aquino and Cory Cojuangco, facilitated the purchases by Jose Cojuangco Sr. in this manner:

• The Central Bank deposited a part of the country’s dollar reserves with the US bank, Manufacturer’s Trust Co., to guarantee repayment of the latter’s dollar loan to Cojuangco to buy the mill; and the GSIS granted Cojuangco a P5.9-million loan to buy the hacienda.

• The CB conditioned its support on Cojuangco’s buying the estate, besides the mill, “with a view to distributing the hacienda to small farmers.” Similarly, the GSIS required that HL be “subdivided among the tenants who shall pay the cost thereof under reasonable terms and conditions.”

 3. Before the purchases were consummated, however, Cojuangco Sr. asked the GSIS to alter the phrase “subdivided among the tenants…” to read: “… shall be sold at cost to tenants, should there be any.”

 Apparently the GSIS acceded to that request, because in 1967 the Cojuangcos declined the government’s call to hand over Hacienda Luisita to the farmers. Their reasoning: “There are no tenants on the hacienda, hence no need to distribute the land.”

 4. On May 7, 1980, the Marcos martial-law government asked the Manila Regional Trial Court to compel the Cojuangco-controlled Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco, which managed HL) to yield the land to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform so it could be distributed to the farmers at cost.

 Again the Cojuangcos argued that the land could not be distributed since HL had no tenants.

 5. On Dec. 2, 1985, the MRTC granted the government pleading. The Cojuangcos decried the order as an act of harassment because Cory was set to run against Marcos in the February 1986 snap elections. They raised the issue to the Court of Appeals.

 6. On Dec. 3, 1985, Cory filed her certificate of candidacy for President. She set land reform as her platform, promising to give land to the tillers and to subject Luisita to land reform.

 7. On Jan. 22, 1987, thousands of farmers marched to Mendiola demanding land reform with free land distribution. Heavily-armed state security forces dispersed them; 13 protesters died in what became known as the Mendiola Massacre.

 8. On July 22, 1987, Cory issued Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 defining her agrarian reform program. It included stock distribution option, or SDO, as a mode of complying with land reform without actually transferring the land to the tiller.

 9. On March 17, 1988, the Cory government petitioned the Court of Appeals to dismiss the Marcos-government pleading granted by the MRTC but appealed by the Cojuangcos. The very next day, the CA granted the petition.

 10. On June 10, 1988, Cory signed into law the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (RA 6657) which incorporated the SDO, allowing landowners to give farmer-beneficiaries shares of stock instead of land. On Aug. 23, Tadeco set up Hacienda Luisita, Inc. to implement the SDO.

 11. When the SDO was implemented on May 11, 1989 the farmworkers’ share in HLI stocks was pegged at only 33 percent, while the Cojuangcos held 67 percent.

 Why the great disparity in the sharing? Tadeco set the value of the 4,916 hectares supposed to go to the farmworkers at only P40,000 per hectare; whereas it set at P500,000 per hectare the value of the 121 hectares (allocated as homelots for the farmworkers), which constituted Tadeco’s share in HLI.

 12. On Oct. 13, 2003, 5,300 farmworkers petitioned the DAR to revoke the SDO, claiming it hadn’t benefited but further impoverished them. They asked to be given the land instead.

 13. On Dec. 22, 2005 the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council granted the farmworkers’ petition. The Cojuangcos challenged the order at the Supreme Court and secured a TRO.

 14. On Nov. 22, 2011, the SC ruled unanimously in favor of the farmworkers. In reaffirming the ruling last April 24, the SC set the land price at P44,000 per hectare - not at P1 million as the Cojuangcos want.

 One way to say: “Sobra na, tama na!”

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