Farmers ask SC to lift TRO, let gov’t distribute Luisita land

Farmers groups on Friday formally asked the Supreme Court to lift the almost four-year-old temporary restraining order it issued that prevented the government from distributing the 6,000-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, owned by the family of presidential aspirant Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III. In a letter of appeal to Chief Justice Reynato Puno, the United Luisita Workers' Union (ULWU), the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), and the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid ng Gitang Luzon (AMGL) asked the high court to lift the TRO it issued in June 2006 upon the petition of the Cojuangco family. "We appeal to our justices' sense of truth, justice, and accountability and their preferential bias for the landless, the exploited, and the oppressed," the farmers said in their letter.
Hacienda Luisita has around 10,000 farmer-beneficiaries. In December 2005, Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) issued an order revoking the stock distribution option (SDO) agreement between Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and the farm workers. The same directive ordered that the property be parceled out among the workers. In 2006, however, the Supreme Court stopped Pangandaman and the PARC from distributing the land to the workers after it granted the Cojuangco family's petition for a TRO. The case remains pending at the high tribunal. "The 10,000 farmworker-beneficiaries believe the high tribunal is politically, constitutionally, and morally obliged to correct a glaring fatal decision that justified the issuance of a TRO on stock distribution option," the farmers said. "The effect of such judicial action further contributed to the long-running and intensifying campaign of injustice and landlessness in Hacienda Luisita," they added.

Around 500 farmers held a picket rally in front of the Supreme Court to push the high tribunal to immediately act upon their request. They carried placards and a large mask depicting Aquino, whom they accuse of failing to persuade his family to let go of the plantation. "Another Aquino administration will provide the Cojuangcos all the political ammunition to deny farmers of their rights to the land," said Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano, KMP chairman, in a statement. It was during the administration of Aquino's mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino, when the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was passed into law. However, critics of Mrs. Aquino claim that the program failed to institute genuine land reform because of the non-distribution of her own family's plantation to farmer-beneficiaries. Noynoy has repeatedly vowed to ensure the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmer-beneficiaries, after all of HLI's debts were paid, before the extended CARP expires on June 2014 whether or not he wins as president. The senator still has three years left in his term as senator. According to Aquino, the Cojuangcos could have easily availed of the voluntary offer to sell option under the agrarian reform program to get rid of allegations that they intend to retain ownership of the land. But they chose not to do so because they first want to clear HLI's debts to avoid burdening the farmer-beneficiaries who stand to share the land. HLI spokesman Antonio Ligon has said Aquino's wishes regarding the fate of Luisita would be followed if he is elected despite the statement of his cousin, Central Azucarera de Tarlac chief operations officer Fernando Cojuangco, who was recently quoted in the New York Times as opposing the distribution of Luisita’s land to farmers. — RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV