Hacienda Luisita: Quest for justice drags on

This is the sixth piece I have written about the quest for land and social justice by the farmworkers at Hacienda Luisita, Inc. in Tarlac, owned by the family of President Aquino. It ought to be — but cannot be — the last.

On Aug. 21, 2010 (ironically the 27th commemoration of Ninoy Aquino’s martyrdom under the Marcos dictatorship) I began this column with a piece titled, “An unending quest for social justice?” 

I took off from the Supreme Court hearing then on the HLI petition opposing the revocation by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council in 2005 of the stock distribution option (SDO) under the Cory Aquino government’s “centerpiece” Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Hacienda Luisita adopted the SDO in 1989, instead of distributing the 6,453 hectares it held to its farmworkers. However, the PARC said the SDO, after 16 years, had failed to improve the lives of its supposed beneficiaries and ordered the land distributed among them.

On July 5, 2011 the SC, voting 6-4, upheld the PARC revocation. But the ruling evoked wide criticisms because the six justices required, before distributing the land, a referendum among the original 6,296 farmworker-petitioners “to choose whether they want to remain as HLI stockholders or not.”

On April 24, 2012, upon appeal by the DAR and the farmworkers belonging to the United Luisita Workers Union, the SC, voting unanimously, finally ordered the distribution of 4,915 hectares of HLI land to 6,296 farmworkers.

 â€œThe 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,” I wrote then.

“Or — to drive home the point sharply — it ended 45 years of maneuvering by the Cojuangcos that thwarted the dispensation of social justice, the essence of the (Ramon Magsaysay) government’s objective in supporting the land purchase.”

To appreciate the context of “45 years of maneuvering,” briefly let’s go through the historical facts on this case:

1. In 1957, when the firm Tabacalera offered to sell Hacienda Luisita, President Magsaysay (godfather in Ninoy and Cory’s wedding in 1954) facilitated its purchase by Cojuangco Sr. The Central Bank guaranteed Cojuangco’s loan from a US bank to buy the land and the GSIS granted him a P5.9-million loan.

These financial backings were premised on the condition that after 10 years ( in 1967) Cojuangco would distribute the land to “small farmers” (CB) or “subdivided among the tenants” (GSIS), which Cojuangco asked to be changed to “sold at cost to tenants, should there be any.”

2. In 1967, Cojuangco Sr. declined to distribute the land, claiming “there are no tenants on the hacienda.” 

3. In 1980, the Marcos martial law government asked the Manila Trial Court to compel the Cojuangcos’ Tarlac Development Corp., the hacienda’s manager, to yield the land for distribution.  In 1985 the court ruled in favor of the government.

4. In 1987, after the Marcos dictatorship was ousted, President Cory issued Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229 defining her agrarian reform program, which included the SDO. These issuances were incorporated in the CARP (RA 6657) that Cory signed in 1988. In 1989 Tadeco organized the HLI to implement the SDO.

5. Before that, on March 17, 1988, the Cory government petitioned the Court of Appeals, to which the Cojuangcos had elevated the Manila court’s 1985 ruling, to dismiss it.  The next day the CA granted the petition.

So many lives have been lost in the farmworkers’ struggle for land and justice, under the leadership of ULWU (established as official union in 1956, before Cojuangco bought Hacienda Luisita).

ULWU president Domingo Viadan, who led co-workers in petitioning government to distribute land to the small farmers, was killed in 1960. Another leader who carried on that advocacy, Cecilio Sumat, was “disappeared” before martial law was imposed.

On Nov. 24, 2004, state forces open fired on striking workers, killing seven farmworkers and injuring hundreds in what became known as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre.  Several supporters of the strike were subsequently gunned down.

Fast forward to 2013:

•  Last February, in compliance with the SC final ruling, the DAR released the final masterlist of  farmworker-beneficiaries, totaling 6,212, who would be given portions of HLI land. In July-August, the DAR began land distribution via a “tambiolo” raffle, requiring each prospective beneficiary to sign a document called Application to Purchase and Farmers’ Undertaking (APFU).

•  The farmworkers under AMBALA again went to the Supreme Court, questioning the method of distribution and the APFU (“Why should we buy the land that is ours by right?” they asked). Calling the DAR method “a sham,” the farmworkers raised several issues, which for lack of space now we shall dwell on in a subsequent piece.

•  Meantime, Tadeco set up outposts with armed guards around prime agricultural lands in Barangays Balete and Cutcut, Tarlac City. Of late Tadeco reportedly ordered the bulldozing of lands cultivated (for rice and vegetable crops) by farmworkers. The latter have holed out in resistance. 

As the new year begins, let’s give the HLI farmworkers the support they deserve.

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