Solve Luisita problem to prove mettle, lawmaker asks Noynoy

A party-list lawmaker urged Senator Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III on Wednesday to show he could govern by scrapping an ultimatum set against farmers and farmworkers tilling more than 2,000-hectares of the lands inside his family’s Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. Anakpawis party-list Representative Rafael Mariano said Hacienda Luisita is a “baptism of fire"for the 49-year-old Aquino, who declared his bid for the presidency early Wednesday. “We challenge him to act on the plight of Luisita farmers and farm workers and scrap the October 30, 2009 ultimatum set by the Luisita management," Mariano said in a press statement. Aquino and the Liberal Party must “seriously consider the just and legitimate demands of Luisita farmers to own the land to prove that they are truly for genuine reforms and social change," he said. “Change must start from the emancipation of the poor, especially for farmers who have long been calling for genuine land reform," Mariano added. Hacienda Luisita and other big landholdings were spared from actual land distribution to farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that was enacted during the presidency of Noynoy’s mother, the late Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. Instead of actual land distribution, the Cojuangcos allotted shares to farmers in the company through the stock distribution option (SDO). Several years ago, the Department ofAgrarian Reform (DAR) finally gathered the resolve to scrap the stock option program and ordered the distribution of the hacienda lands to farmers. The Supreme Court, however, stopped the DAR from distributing the lands. In response, United Luisita Workers’ Union (Ulwu) members started cultivating some 2,000 hectares of the more than 6,000 hectares in the estate to grow food crops for their families. But in a memorandum dated Dec. 18, 2008, Hernan Gregorio Jr., assistant estate manager of Hacienda Luisita, Inc., gave the farmers until Oct.30 ,2009, to “discontinue and desist from using, cultivating, planting or possessing said parcel/s of land." “Unfortunately, the Cojuangcos doesn’t want to let go off the lands. Farmers are now being prevented from cultivating the Hacienda using an illegal scrap of paper," Mariano said. “The Cojuangcos have no legal, political and moral right to use the Hacienda Luisita management’s illegal memorandum to prevent farm workers from continuously cultivating and developing the Luisita lands," he said. According to Mariano, based on the tally of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, the tillage campaign has benefited 838 families or 1,676 people in the villages of Mapalacsiao (244.5 ha), Asturias (209.93 ha), Bantog (258 ha), Cut-Cut (275.9 ha), Balite (153.4 ha), Mutrico (248 ha), Pando (163 ha), Texas (140 ha), Pasajes (60 ha) and Parang (51.5 ha). Mariano, who also chairs the peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), said that “after the onerous and one-sided stock distribution option (SDO) scheme was cancelled by the DAR, the farmers and farm workers who have been denied by the Cojuangcos for decades of their right to own the lands are now the true owners of the lands." Mariano said Noynoy Aquino can correct the wrongs committed by the Hacienda Luisita management. He reminded the senator that seven farm workers were massacred at the Hacienda when they pressed their claim to the land in 2004. It was the massacre the spurred the DAR to cancel the SSDO scheme and order the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmer-beneficiaries in 2005. The Cojuangcos, however, appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. - GMANews.TV