HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC CITY ? In this 6,500-hectare sugar estate, the agrarian conflict is no longer between relatives of the Liberal Party standard-bearer, Sen. Benigno Aquino III, and the 8,000 farm workers who opted to acquire land than shares of stock.

The dispute is now deeper and sharper among the workers than it is with the landowner, the Cojuangco clan, farmers told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

It seems out of place. Through the shares of stock distributed to them in 1989, the farmers altogether own 33 percent of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI). The rest, 67 percent, is owned by the clan of the late President Corazon Aquino, the senator?s mother, through Tarlac Development Corp. (TDC).

Technically, the farm workers are still stockholders of HLI, according to Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Narciso Nieto.

The stock distribution option (SDO) scheme is still in place because the Supreme Court temporarily stopped the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) from distributing 4,415 hectares in 2006.

But division has seeped through the ranks of the farm workers because of the same thing they aspired for: A piece of land in Hacienda Luisita.

For instance, in Barangay Texas (also known as Lourdes), 146 SDO holders petitioned HLI and the newly formed Luisita Estate Management (LEM) on Nov. 10 to stop at least two of their fellow holders from renting out 400 hectares of land to growers from Nueva Ecija and Taiwan.

?Pantay-pantay sana ang pagbubungkal namin sa lupa (We had expected equal use of the land),? Elena Reyes, 53, said.

It escapes her why other farmers do this. Their audacity makes her suspect that powerful people were behind them, she said.

In their appeal, the 146 SDO holders want to ?use, not own? a hectare or even half a hectare of land in Texas, where 470 holders share almost 500 hectares.

Reyes said the wiser among them made life harder for others.

?Sugar planting stopped after the (2004 strike). We had no jobs, no cash rations, hospital services, transportation coupons or loans to get. The land we want went to a few farm workers like us,? she said.

Noynoy should intervene

Senator Aquino should intervene by asking his relatives to bring back some sense of order and justice in the sugar estate, Reyes said.

?When he was a [Tarlac] congressman, he dealt with us like we were his constituents. He did not act like a landowner,? he said.

Aquino owns only a 1.1-percent share in TDC, said HLI spokesperson Antonio Ligon.

Some of those who led the agrarian protests held alongside the labor strike at Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT), the sugar mill inside the hacienda, in November 2004 are the ?ones who rent out big tracts of lands [in Concepcion town] to outsiders,? said Renato Luna Jr., head of Barangay Balite.

The strike ended violently on Nov. 16 that year. Seven strikers were dead after a clash with policemen and soldiers that enforced the labor secretary?s order assuming jurisdiction of the strike.

Mill workers and the CAT management had settled a year after the strike, but the agrarian side of the conflict is now on its fifth year, with militants throwing the issue at Aquino.

Lito Bais, chair of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU), said his group was working with the group of Concepcion Mayor Noel Villanueva, a sugar planter.

?We did not have the means of production so we partnered with the group of Mayor Villanueva. We also learned new technologies by working with his group,? Bais said.

This arrangement had no consent from HLI or LEM, said Herman Gregorio, LEM manager.

Villanueva said he paid the farm workers P6,000 per hectare as rental for 200 hectares in Barangay Pando. Bais said the ULWU was not getting anything from the deal.

For unknown reasons, the village council is paid P1,000. CAT asked to be paid P30 per ton of sugarcane harvested.

Food crops

In nine other villages in La Paz and Concepcion towns and in Tarlac City that are within the estate, ULWU promoted the ?bungkalan? or tilling system, Bais said.

?Some use the land to plant food crops or cash crops,? he said.

The tillers do not pay land rent to HLI or to the ULWU, he said.

Information gathered by the Inquirer showed sugar growers in Tarlac had used the farm workers to gain access to large tracts of land in Luisita, paying the likes of Ely Mercado and 27 more residents of Barangay Asturias P75 for every 1,000 canes planted.

?The land is there for you to take, but if you have no money to buy seeds and tools, how can you plant on your own?? said Mercado.

Others said it was HLI that had been renting out the land to sugar growers, a situation denied by Buena Timbol, LEM administrative services manager.

?We confined our planting in 50 hectares around the mill,? she said.

By the DAR?s monitoring, some 3,000 of the 4,415 hectares of land have been planted to sugar cane, rice and vegetables.

The tilling of lands while the case is still pending with the Supreme Court ?does not prejudice [the land distribution],? said Teofilo Inocencio, agrarian reform regional director.

He described the planting activities to be in ?uncontrolled proportions.?

?We?re told that most of the users are potential beneficiaries. We can?t say who rented how many hectares to whom because the transactions are undocumented,? Inocencio said.

Agrarian reform

But while the DAR has been preparing a list of potential beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita until the Supreme Court?s order comes, Inocencio said the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms law (Republic Act No. 9700), would ?apply in the identification of beneficiaries.?

?There?s an order of priority there for [agrarian] corporations and cooperatives,? he said.

That means nothing is certain yet on who will really get land, he said.

Gregorio said the current fight over the estate would not augur well for the use of Hacienda Luisita, either as an agrarian reform community or whatever productive setups might be devised.

?As the landowner, surely HLI has to put some order in its house. The illegal settlers and tillers can threaten the claims of SDO holders to the land,? he said.

HLI has not taken legal actions against illegal tillers or issued eviction notices to them, he said.

Should the Supreme Court resolve the case in favor of the farm workers, the beneficiaries stand to get small parcels of land.

In Balite, for example, 800 SDO holders will have to share among themselves only 300 hectares?something that would not be fruitful in terms of agricultural production, Luna said.

Used to having the Cojuangcos provide everything they needed, Mercado said: ?Ibalik na nila ang tubo. Kahit trabahador kami, may nakukuha pa kaming tulong at arawan (The Cojuangcos should grow sugarcane again. As workers we can still get help and daily wages).?

That is a hope that ULWU opposes.

Owning the land, Bais said, would free the farm workers.