MANILA, Philippines - Liberal Party standard bearer Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III should face the land dispute involving the Cojuangco family-owned Hacienda Luisita, according to Bayan Muna party list Representative Satur Ocampo.

The issue ?goes beyond the 2010 elections?, the militant party list congressman said on Monday.

Ocampo and Gabriela representative Liza Maza of Gabriela are scheduled to sit down with Aquino within the week to discuss their possible alliance for the May 2010 elections.

But talks are in the more advanced stage with Senator Manuel Villar of the Nacionalista Party (NP), which has opened its slot to accommodate Ocampo and Liza in its senatorial line-up.

Ocampo said Hacienda Luisita ?should not be reduced into a simple electoral issue to be used and then forgotten after the 2010 elections.?

Militant groups are commemorating Monday the fifth anniversary of the massacre in the Aquino property in Tarlac where seven farmers were killed in a clash with military and police at the height of their protest over their take home pay and retrenchment of fellow workers.

?The farm workers of Hacienda Luisita are not raising the issue of agrarian reform to discredit Senator Noynoy Aquino?s candidacy. They have been fighting for their right to own the land even when Ninoy Aquino was alive and Noynoy was still a child,? Ocampo said in a statement.

He continued, ?Likewise, they are not doing this to support the candidacy of Aquino?s rivals.?

Ocampo said Aquino should not take it against the farmers of they persist on raising the issue with him, adding that a just solution would be for the junking of the stock distribution option between farm workers and the Cojuangco family.

?The farmers are concerned that if a solution is not reached before the 2010 elections, they would again be forgotten by the next government and relegated to just being fodder for the elections,? he said.