Luisita case in SC to focus on 1989 farmers' stock option

(Updated 10:33 pm) The Hacienda Luisita land case's oral arguments before the Supreme Court scheduled on Wednesday will zero in on the validity of the stock distribution option (SDO) agreement that farmer beneficiaries entered into with Hacienda Luisita Inc. and the Tarlac Development Co. in May 1989. The specific dispute that the SC has to resolve stems from the petition HLI filed in February 2006, which asked the court to prevent the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) from enforcing a resolution ordering the Luisita lands to be distributed and the SDO to be revoked. The 1989 SDO agreement, which prefigured the recent compromise agreement, had allowed farmers to keep stocks in the corporation instead of receiving land to till. The SDO scheme was criticized as an underhanded way for the landowners, the family of President Benigno Aquino III, to avoid land reform and retain their hold on the 6,453-hectare sugar estate. (Click here for part one of GMANews.TV's history of the Hacienda Luisita issue)
For Wednesday's oral arguments scheduled 2 p.m., the court said parties in the case should focus on the following:

• Whether or not PARC has jurisdiction, power and/or authority to revoke the 1989 SDO agreement, and whether the council, in 2006, followed due process in ordering the revocation of the agreement;
• Whether or not there is a legal basis to revoke the SDO agreement;
• Whether the DAR and PARC are the real parties-in-interest in the case;
• "Whether or not the rights, obligations, and remedies of the parties to the SDOA are now governed by the Corporation Code and not by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law;" and
• "Whether Luisita Industrial Park Corporation (LIPCO) and Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), as transferees of a portion of Hacienda Luisita, may invoke the doctrine of innocent purchaser for value in the instant case."

Compromise deal Gleoresty Guerra, assistant chief of the Supreme Court public information office, said the oral arguments may also discuss the compromise deal forged between HLI and farmer-beneficiaries on August 6. "Even if it (compromise agreement) is not mentioned in the guidelines, there is no prohibition (against it being tackled)," Guerra told reporters on Tuesday. Under the August 6 compromise agreement, farmers are again given the option to retain their stocks in the sugar plantation, or to get their share of land from some 1,400 hectares out of the 6,453-hectare Cojuangco-owned estate in Tarlac province. Last week, HLI asked the court to approve the controversial August 6 compromise settlement. (See: HLI asks Supreme Court to approve Luisita agreement) On Tuesday, Guerra said the court asked PARC and Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes to comment within 10 days on HLI's joint submission and motion for approval. In a related development, Guerra said the court also asked HLI to comment on farmers' groups' opposition to the compromise deal. Last Monday, a faction of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (AMBALA) asked the SC to nullify the compromise deal. They said the deal, apart from being illegal, was meant to preempt the high tribunal's oral arguments and decision on the 1989 SDO scheme. (See: Luisita farmers ask SC to junk compromise agreement) Guerra also said the SC denied the motions to intervene filed by former Commission on Elections chair Christian Monsod and lawyer Marlon Manuel, because the two are not parties to the case. The high court considers the HLI and the respondents as adequately represented already, said Guerra. Monsod is among the more prominent critics of the allegedly "sham" compromise deal. Background of the land dispute The Hacienda Luisita sugar estate is owned by the Cojuangcos, the family of President Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Aquino. Like other vast estates in other parts of the country, the hacienda was earmarked for land reform on the basis of the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. In 1989, however, the SDO was implemented, which gave farmer-tenants the alternative option of getting shares of stock from the corporation that owned the estate. Under this scheme, each of the farmer-tenants received certificates of stocks from HLI instead of parcels of land for them to own and till. In 2005, under the Arroyo administration, the PARC issued a resolution ordering the cancellation of the SDO scheme on the premise that it made farmers’ lives worse. It also ordered the distribution of some 4,915 hectares of land covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. To prevent the DAR and PARC from enforcing the resolution, HLI asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order, which the court granted in 2006. The TRO remains in effect to this day, which has the effect of keeping the SDO scheme in force until the SC rules otherwise. Wednesday's oral arguments will be the first since the case was brought to the court's doorstep four years ago. Other guidelines According to the guidelines issued by the SC for the oral arguments, the parties only have a maximum of 25 minutes each to present their arguments through their respective counsels. In case a party has more than one lawyer, the lead counsel has to decide how to divide the allotted 25 minutes. The guidelines also disallow live media coverage at the SC session hall. Recording devices are not allowed inside the hall as well. Farmers assemble Meanwhile, on the eve of the SC oral arguments on the Luisita case, about 300 farm workers from the sugar plantation in Tarlac traveled to Manila in anticipation of the event. The farm workers, who are members of one faction of AMBALA, went to Manila to witness the “historic" oral argument with hopes that the two-decade land row will finally be resolved, a GMA News report said. The farm workers attended a mass at the Sto. Domingo Church in Manila and will spend the night in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Quezon City, before going to the SC on Wednesday. —With Andreo C. Calonzo/JV, GMANews.TV