Honasan: Senate considering inquiry on Luisita deal

Senator Gregorio Honasan said the Senate is considering conducting an inquiry on the so-called compromise agreement between Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and its farmer-beneficiaries. "The hearing is under consideration," Honasan told reporters in an interview on Monday. He issued the statement after two militant peasant groups called on the Senate and the House of Representatives to look into the agreement which gave 10,000 farmers the option to retain their stocks in HLI or get their free land in the disputed 6,453-hectare sugar estate in Tarlac province. In an interview over Unang Hirit early Monday, lawyer Tony Ligon, HLI spokesperson, said out of the 7,442 farmer-beneficiaries who took part in the referendum, 7,300 voted to retain their stocks under the corporation's SDO.

Courtesy call Honasan, who chairs the Senate committee on agrarian reform, said he plans to take up the matter with Agrarian Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes Monday afternoon when the latter pays a courtesy call on him. "I will coordinate during this afternoon's talks... if there is a need for a committee hearing so that we can give an opportunity to other sectors involved (like) farmers and HLI representatives to ventilate certain issues beyond the legal issues," he said. Honasan said they will determine the steps that can be taken without getting in the way of the resolution of the case pending with the Supreme Court (SC). The SC set for August 18 the oral arguments for HLI’s 2006 petition against the orders of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) to distribute some 4,915 hectares of the land to the farmers and to cancel the SDO scheme. The scheduled oral arguments will determine whether the stock distribution option (SDO) scheme will be retained, or if the land will be distributed to the farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Honasan explained that the recent settlement between HLI and the farmers is just a "continuation" of the HLI's SDO scheme. He said, however, that he prefers to wait for the SC ruling on the matter. "If the SC rules that it is illegal or unconstitutional, that is null and void," he said. — Kimberly Jane Tan/RSJ/VVP, GMANews.TV