Luisita farmers appeal for speedy SC ruling on land case

After 21 years of waiting for a decision on their right to own land in the sprawling sugar estate owned by the family of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, the farmers of Hacienda Luisita have appealed to the Supreme Court to speed up the resolution of the case. In a letter addressed to Chief Justice Renato Corona submitted Wednesday, factions of United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) requested the high court to decide on the land dispute at the soonest possible time. "It does not matter how that decision will go as long as the Supreme Court performs its bounden duty to render a decision with dispatch. The Supreme Court may decide which way it wants to decide as long as it should decide now in order to spare us from the torment of waiting far too long," said the farmers. AMBALA lawyer Jobert Pahilga said the farmers are not giving up the fight and were merely criticizing what they perceived as undue delay in the resolution of the case. "Of course, they can't ask the court to decide in their favor. They just want to emphasize the need for a ruling already," he said in a phone interview with GMANews.TV. But he added that the farmers are "confident" that the SC will rule in their favor. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the validity of the hacienda's Stock Distribution Option (SDO) agreement, which gave farmers shares of stock instead of land. The SDO deal was forged in May 1989, but the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) ordered its revocation in December 2005. The Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. appealed the order to the Supreme Court in February 2006, and months later, the court issued a temporary restraining order in favor of HLI. A compromise agreement between the hacienda's owners and majority of the farmers was signed in August this year in favor of the SDO scheme, a few days before the high court started proceedings to hear oral arguments for the case. The high tribunal has formed a panel to mediate between the parties, but the mediation talks hit an impasse last September. Various farmers groups claiming to represent ULWU and AMBALA have muddled the land issue in the hacienda. In its letter, the factions of ULWU and AMBALA represented by Pahilga said in light of the developments, the high court has to issue a ruling on the case immediately. "Upon these circumstances... we are writing your good office once again to urgently pray for the speedy resolution of the case. The clarification having been made through the oral arguments and the duly submitted memoranda of the parties, we believe that nothing should stand by now as an obstacle for the SC to resolve the case expeditiously," they said in the letter to Corona. –VVP/YA, GMANews.TV