Luisita lawyers, farmers sit with SC mediating panel

Lawyers for the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and representatives of farmer-beneficiaries on Thursday separately faced members of a Supreme Court-formed panel tasked to mediate in the 21-year land dispute. HLI spokesman Tony Ligon said the sugar estate offered options to the panel but declined to divulge them. “We have to refer these to the (HLI) executive committee. The mediators will also have to discuss these options to other parties, so you cannot make a detailed enumeration of these options because other parties have not been advised," Ligon told GMANews.TV. HLI lawyer Gener Asuncion also said that after HLI, representatives of the farm workers met with the panel. The meeting is ongoing as of posting time. The mediating panel is chaired by retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Alicia Austria-Martinez with retired Court of Appeals Justices Hector Hofileña and Teresita Dy-LIacco Flores as members. The high tribunal formed the panel last week as part of its efforts to resolve within a month the land dispute involving the family of President Benigno Aquino III. In May 1989, the Cojuangco-owned HLI and Tarlac Development Corp. (TADECO) forged a Stock Distribution Option agreement with more than 6,200 farmer beneficiaries. Under the SDO scheme, farmer beneficiaries are given shares of stocks instead of the land that they were asking under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). In 2005, the PARC ordered land distribution and the revocation of the SDO agreement because it supposedly did not fulfill CARP's thrust of social justice and improved lives for farmers. In 2006, the HLI asked the SC to stop the PARC from canceling the SDO scheme and ordering land distribution. The court granted the corporation’s plea by issuing a temporary restraining order preventing PARC from enforcing the resolution against the SDO scheme. In August this year, HLI and the farmer beneficiaries entered into a compromise deal where farmers are given the option to retain their stocks in the sugar plantation, or to get their share of land from the 6,543-hectare sugar estate in Tarlac province. After two oral arguments on the land case, the SC decided to form a mediating to panel to strike a "win-win" solution. Terminate mediation efforts On Wednesday, factions of farmers’ groups Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (AMBALA) and Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (SENTRA) asked for the abolition of the mediating panel, saying it might only serve to benefit the Hacienda Luisita management. The farmers asked the court to decide on the validity of the SDO even without a mediating process. “The Supreme Court could already rule on the issue brought before it without resorting to mediation. It will also be a tool to do away with, and in effect would set aside, the decision to distribute the agricultural lands of Hacienda Luisita to the farm workers," the groups said. On Thursday, farmers from AMBALA and United Luisita Workers' Union picketed near the Supreme Court to demand land distribution. “Actual physical land distribution is what we want, mediation is out of the question. There is no win-win solution in our case as the high court wanted to propose," said a statement quoting ULWU acting chair Lito Bais. - Sophia Regina Dedace/KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV