President Aquino says Cojuangco kin must obey SC order

President Aquino on Friday said his family, which will have to give up the soon-to-be-redistributed Hacienda Luisita, should be given just compensation, stressing that agrarian reform calls for both farmers and landowners to share the benefits of the land.

The President—who had not seen a copy of the Supreme Court decision ordering the breaking up of the family-owned sugar estate because he had “more pressing matters before my plate right now”—told reporters in Legazpi City he was “not competent” to make any statement yet on the landmark decision.

Asked if he would advise his Cojuangco relatives, the Hacienda Luisita owners, to comply with the Supreme Court order, Mr. Aquino said: “You comply when the Supreme Court makes an order. That should be the case. They decide on a question of law, there should be compliance. I don’t think that’s optional.”

But in answer to many questions on his reaction to the adverse high court decision, Mr. Aquino stressed that agrarian reform seeks to achieve two things—to “empower the farmers” but also to ensure that landowners are “justly compensated” for giving up their lands.

“Farmers need to be empowered so they can have their own lands to till,” he said.

“But agrarian reform has a second part. Let us not deplete capital. That means there should be just compensation so that the owners of land do not end up having their land taken from them, that they be rightly paid. The capital that is returned to them can be invested in other industries that can help add more jobs in the country,” he told reporters at the First National Media Conference on Climate Change Adaptation at Bicol University.

“I hope these two objectives will be met, that no one sector will be favored and the other sacrificed,” Mr. Aquino said.

The idea is for all boats to be lifted at the same time, he said in Filipino.

Mr. Aquino said that “unless given contrary evidence,” he presumed regularity in the Supreme Court decision against his family, given the recent conflict between the Executive and the high court over the former’s defiance of a Supreme Court decision upholding former President Macapagal-Arroyo’s right to travel.

Undermining ruling

Militant party-list House members on Friday warned against moves by Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to undermine the Supreme Court order to redistribute the estate by bloating the number of beneficiaries with the addition of their supposed “lackeys” and passing on their unpaid obligations to the beneficiaries.

Rep. Teodoro Casiño of the party-list Bayan Muna said the Cojuangcos could still “sabotage” the decision by filing for a motion for reconsideration even though the ruling was unanimous.

“They may also create trouble by instigating the 4,206 who were not given land but were hired by the HLI years ago for the purpose of bloating the farmworker-beneficiaries to make land distribution impracticable,” he said, adding that it would be “another injustice” against the farmers.

Casiño was referring to an alleged plan by HLI to pass on to the victorious farmers the estate’s still unpaid P2-billion loan from San Miguel Corp.

Rafael Mariano (Anakpawis) said the Cojuangco-Aquino family should reimburse the farmers for the P1.335 billion they received for the sale of parcels of land in Hacienda Luisita—P500 million for the sale of 200 hectares to Luisita Realty; P750 million for the sale of 300 ha to Centennary Holdings; and P80.5 million for the 80.5-ha lot sold to the Bases Conversion Development Authority for the right-of-way of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.

Casiño joined the clamor for the magistrates to junk similar stock distribution option (SDO) deals adopted by 12 other sugar and coconut farms covering a combined 2,787 ha.

He noted that the high court decision on Luisita was silent on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the SDO, which he said could be used yet again by other big landlords and “even by the Aquino administration under the guise of public-private partnership (PPP).”

But Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said other big corporations that have also resorted to SDO should also follow the latest SC ruling. “This means that they are also obligated to distribute the lands to the farmers to give justice and meaning to the agrarian reform program,” he said.

There are 12 other haciendas with SDO schemes, the majority of them in Negros Occidental province.

Evardone said the SC ruling was “revolutionary” and should prompt the Department of Agrarian Reform to adopt safeguards to make sure that the distributed lands would not find their way back to the original owners.

Only the first step

While hailing the Supreme Court decision, Catholic bishops warned the government that unless it gives its full support to the Luisita farmers, the latter might be compelled to sell the land back to the landowners.

Land distribution is just the first step towards genuine land reform, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ National Secretariat for Social Action (CBCP-Nassa).

Fr. Edu Gariguez, executive secretary of the CBCP-Nassa, said farmers must be given the needed support and services to assist them in their production and social enterprises.

“Without this support, the farmers are always in danger of losing their lands,” said Gariguez.

The CBCP-Nassa, which has been helping the farmer-beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita in fighting the SDO, said it would closely monitor the actual distribution of the lands.

Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco said the government must provide farmer-beneficiaries with proper guidance and advice and financial support, or “they might just sell or pawn their land once in need.”

Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo and Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso echoed similar sentiments.

Eye of the needle

Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said he anticipated that the Hacienda Luisita owners would appeal the ruling as they would do whatever they can to stop the distribution of the land.

“I believe that the owners will not easily agree to it… the farmers will still have to go through the eye of the needle before they get to claim their lands,” he said.

Gariguez said “the Cojuangcos will definitely oppose the land distribution as what they did in the long history of struggle… President Aquino must show impartiality and political will in implementing social reform law.”

First posted 12:52 am | Saturday, November 26th, 2011