Lawmaker slams Cojuango’s plan to ‘donate’ Luisita lands

MANILA, Philippines — Anakpawis party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano on Saturday assailed the Cojuangcos plan to donate 50 hectares of land in Hacienda Luisita to be converted into a national training and billeting center for athletes, calling the move as “a plot to weaken and undermine farmers’ legitimate claim over the contested lands." Mariano issued the statement after Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) president Jose Cojuangco revealed plans “to donate" part of the vast property owned by the Cojuangco family to serve as site for a National Training Center. POC spokesman Joey Romasanta said the Cojuangco group of companies would put up some 50 hectares of land in Hacienda Luisita for 50-year lease at P1 a year. “It is highly deplorable that the Cojuangcos are arbitrarily deciding on what to do with Hacienda Luisita. The lands belong to the farmers and farm workers long denied of their rightful claims over the lands," says Mariano. He said that “Cojuangco’s pretense of generosity appears to be a plot to weaken and undermine farmers and farm workers’ legitimate claim over the contested lands." “This move would pave the way for the massive conversion of lands in the Hacienda. In fact, they have already converted more than 500 hectares," the lawmaker said. Mariano said the “bogus" Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and Joint Resolution No. 1 passed by Congress in December last year, which removed even the token compulsory acquisition scheme triggered moves of big landowners to strengthen their grip over vast tracts of lands. “The sham CARP that was further emasculated by Joint Resolution No. 1 reinforced moves by big landlords to keep their lands, like the Cojuangco's Hacienda Luisita, away from actual distribution," said Mariano, author of House Bill 3059 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill. “In 1989, then President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino’s administration placed the 6,400 hectare Hacienda Luisita under the CARP’s stock distribution option (SDO) scheme, instead of distributing the lands. Under the CARP’s SDO, the Cojuangcos have not only managed to evade their decades-old responsibility but have also gotten rid of all legal obstacles to their ownership of the hacienda," he added. In December 2005, a year after the Hacienda Luisita massacre, the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council cancelled the SDO in Hacienda Luisita. Farmers are now cultivating more than 1,800 hectares of Hacienda Luisita with their crops mainly devoted to rice and vegetables. - D'Jay Lazaro, GMANews.TV