Luisita farmers appeal SC ruling, seek land distribution

Hacienda Luisita farm workers in Tarlac have asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reverse its order for a new referendum where more than 6,000 qualified farmer beneficiaries will again vote if they want to receive land or stocks. In a 76-page motion for reconsideration filed on Wednesday, the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (AMBALA) asked the SC to order land distribution and not another referendum to be conducted by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). AMBALA is one of the direct parties to the case. In a landmark ruling on July 5, the SC revoked Hacienda Luisita Inc.'s (HLI) stock distribution plan (SDP) that allowed for a stock distribution option (SDO) agreement in 1989. Under the deal, farmers were given the option to receive land or HLI stocks. Even after revoking the SDP, the court still ordered the DAR to administer a secret voting among the 6,296 qualified farm-worker beneficiaries who will pick between land and shares of stock. In its appeal, AMBALA argued that the high court should have made an outright order for land distribution. They said there is no longer a legal basis to call for a new voting because the SDP has already been nullified. The farmers likewise asserted that shares of stocks should no longer be an option because "inequity will continue to fester." "The SDO in HLI did not improve but had further thrust the farm workers deep into the quagmire of poverty. Several years after its implementation, the farm workers remained in a state of destitution and misery," said AMBALA. "There is no more reason therefore, for the continued operation of the said scheme. 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," added AMBALA. Section 31 of CARL is unconstitutional The group likewise assailed Section 31 of Republic Act No. 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), which allows corporations owning agricultural lands to give farmer beneficiaries the right to own stocks in the corporation instead of receiving actual land. In its appeal, AMBALA said the Supreme Court erred in ruling that Section 31 was constitutional. For the farmers, any stock distribution option allowed by the CARL's Section 31 goes against the spirit of the 1987 Constitution. Section 4, Article XIII of the Charter mandates the State to "encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands" and to "undertake an agrarian reform program founded on the rights of farmers and regular farmers who are landless, to own directly or collectively the land they till." The farmers said that contrary to view of the majority of the SC justices, "the collective ownership" clause refers not only to the collective tillage of the land but also the collective ownership by the farmers or regular farm workers through a farmer's cooperative or association wholly owned by the farm workers themselves. "It should not be a cooperative, association, or corporation commonly owned or owned in common by farmers/farm workers and landowners," said AMBALA, referring to the Cojuangco-owned HLI. Referring again to the farmers' situation under HLI, the group said: "The land becomes mere investment of the farmers and it will be owned by the corporation. The farmers will only be given shares of stocks equivalent to the value of their land. Clearly, this set up is not consistent with section 4, Article XIII of the Constitution." Referendum's legal basis questioned The farmers also challenged the basis of the SC's move to call for a new voting among the qualified farmer beneficiaries. The Supreme Court's decision, written by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco, said that despite the revocation of HLI's stock distribution plan, it cannot turn a blind eye on the fact that in 1989, 93 percent of the farmer beneficiaries agreed to a stock distribution option deal. The SC used the "operative fact doctrine" to justify its mandate to call for a new referendum. The SC defines the operative fact doctrine as follows: "In declaring a law or executive action null and void, or, by extension, no longer without force and effect, undue harshness and resulting unfairness must be avoided." "This is as it should realistically be, since rights might have accrued in favor of natural or juridical persons and obligations justly incurred in the meantime.The actual existence of a statute or executive act is, prior to such a determination, an operative fact and may have consequences which cannot justly be ignored; the past cannot always be erased by a new judicial declaration." However, AMBALA argued that the SC erred in having the operative fact principle as the basis for making the farmers choose if they want to receive land or to remain as HLI stockholders. "The majority of the members of the honorable court, with due respect, erred in applying the doctrine of operative facts and in making the farm-worker beneficiaries choose to opt for actual land distribution or to remain as stockholders of Hacienda Luisita Inc," the group said. "The doctrine of operative facts is inapplicable. There is no legal basis in making the farm-worker beneficiaries choose to opt for actual land distribution or to remain as stockholders of HLI," AMBALA added. - VVP, GMA News