Gov’t to help Hacienda Luisita farmers strike a deal to use sugar mill

MANILA, Philippines—Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Agrarian Reform would ask the management of the sugar mill to open it to farmer-beneficiaries who would like to engage in sugar cane farming.

Alcala said the DA would be willing to “intervene” in behalf of the 6,200 farmer-beneficiaries to open the Tarlac sugar mill again upon the issuance of a final Supreme Court decision to distribute the land owned by President Benigno Aquino’s relatives.

Alcala said farmers who wanted to use the mill could pay a toll to the management for the use of it. The toll would have to be negotiated by the parties, he said.

“It would help the farmers because of economies of scale,” the DA chief said.

The hacienda is one of the largest sugar mills in Luzon. It ceased operation after the workers held a strike in 2006 that led to clashes between them and the police and military. The picket line fight killed seven and injured scores of farmers.

Alcala said he and Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes have formed a group to study the best ways to help the farmers.

Aside from helping them negotiate with the company to use the mill facilities, the DA would also fund tractors and trailers for the tillers, he said. “They need farm mechanization,” Alcala said.

The DA has also talked with fertilizers and seeds companies to provide the Luisita farmers with inputs.

The Supreme Court last month ordered the management of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to distribute 4,915.75 ha of the sugar estate to 6,296 registered farmworker-beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law passed more than two decades ago under President Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.

According to the Court, the SDO implemented in Hacienda Luisita, the largest plantation in the country to implement such scheme, failed to improve the lives of the farmers and did not give them control of the land, as mandated by the law.

Officials from the DA and DAR said Hacienda Luisita farmers have never received any government intervention or help because they were under a private company.

Since the late 1950s, Hacienda Luisita has been under the management of the Cojuangcos, Aquino’s relatives and one of the most powerful political clans in the country.