Luisita farmers take ‘final stand’ for land distribution

Order land distribution and revoke the stock distribution option (SDO) that makes farmers poorer. This was the "final message" sent to the Supreme Court by a splinter group of farmers in Hacienda Luisita, a sprawling sugar estate in Tarlac owned by the family of President Benigno Aquino III. In a 49-page memorandum filed on Wednesday, a faction of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (AMBALA) said the high court should uphold the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council’s (PARC) December 2005 resolution ordering the revocation of the May 1989 SDO agreement. Under the SDO scheme, farmers get shares of stocks, whose number is based on the number of days they till land. "The SDO in Hacienda Luisita Inc. did not improve, but had further thrust the farm workers deep into the quagmire of poverty. Several years after [the SDO's] implementation, the farm workers remain in state of destitution and misery. There is no more reason therefore, for the continued operation of the said scheme," the petitioners said. "The land should now be distributed to the farm workers. In the first place, this sprawling agricultural estate rightfully, legally, morally and historically belongs to them," the group said. Memorandum AMBALA lawyer Jobert Pahilga said the court should immediately take action because the Cojuangcos have no intent of giving up the 6,453-hectare land. "This is our final stand. In our memorandum, we said the Supreme Court should affirm the decision of the PARC," he said. Last August 24, the court heard oral arguments for the case and ordered the parties to file their respective memoranda within a 30-day period that will lapse on Thursday. That same day, the court also decided to create a panel to mediate between the estate’s corporate owners and its farmers. Pahilga said the memorandum they filed was related to the case proper and not to the ongoing mediation proceedings, which his group already walked out from early this week. Luisita land dispute (See: Holding On: A Hacienda Luisita timeline from the Spanish to the Noynoy eras) In May 1989, HLI and Tarlac Development Corp. (TADECO) forged a Stock Distribution Option agreement with more than 6,200 farmer beneficiaries. 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 then granted the corporation’s plea by issuing a temporary restraining order preventing PARC from enforcing the resolution against the SDO scheme. On August 6 this year, the HLI management and factions of farmers group forged a compromise deal where the farmers were given the option to remain under the SDO scheme or get a portion of the land. More than 7,000 of the 10,00 farmer beneficiaries voted to remain under the SDO scheme. In AMBALA's memorandum on Wednesday, it said that the court should lift the TRO it issued in 2006. It also asked the court to refund the farm workers of 33 percent of the proceeds of the sale of 500-hectares to Luisita Industrical Park Co. or Lipco. — KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV