Farmers march for free Luisita land
Lito Bais and Florida Sibayan, both 56, said they don’t find themselves too old to be marching on the street under the searing heat to demand land from the Aquino administration.
Lito Bais and Florida Sibayan, both 56, said they don’t find themselves too old to be marching on the street under the searing heat to demand land from the Aquino administration.
Most were happy, others were overwhelmed, and still others were confused, even angry, as the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Wednesday released the final list of 6,212 beneficiaries of the sprawling sugar plantation owned by the family of President Aquino, which was ordered distributed to its workers by the Supreme Court.
In 2003, Hacienda Luisita farmers, claiming a stock distribution option (SDO) failed to uplift their living conditions, filed a petition in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to revoke the arrangement.
A militant peasant group described as a “sham” the final master list of farmers and farm workers who stand to receive land from Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac that was released by the Department of Agrarian Reform on Wednesday.
The family of President Benigno Aquino is much closer to losing ownership of large portions of its Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said on Friday that 6,300 farm workers have made it to the final list of beneficiaries of lands in the sugar estate that were ordered distributed by the Supreme Court in April last year.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) will deal only with farmworkers, not with other parties, when it distributes land inside the sugar estate owned by the family of President Aquino, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said.
The final list of beneficiaries of 4,915 hectares in Hacienda Luisita will be released in the first week of February, moving the distribution of a large chunk of the sugar estate owned by the family of President Aquino toward the last stretch, according to Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes.
The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) on Saturday defended farm workers behind the burning of 200 hectares of sugarcane on Hacienda Luisita last week, calling this an act to assert ownership of the land that has been denied to them by the family of President Benigno Aquino.
At least 200 hectares of sugarcane farms in Hacienda Luisita have been burned allegedly by farm workers angry over the failure of their tenants to pay for the use of the farms at the end of the current cropping season, a farm workers’ leader here said.
Coalition of small farmers, church workers, civil society members, and government employees is urging President Aquino to “rise above his class” and put agrarian reform in the forefront of the national agenda.
The militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the claimants’ movement Coco Levy Funds Ibalik sa Amin (CLAIM) have expressed dismay over reports that the Department of Agrarian Reform is eyeing the coco levy fund for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (Carp).
When personnel of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) drove across rugged roads to far-flung villages in Tarlac province months ago to explain the Supreme Court decision awarding Hacienda Luisita to its farm workers, they were met with skepticism.
It is harvest time in the sugar plantations.
