Aquino kin told: Return Luisita toll

CITY OF San Fernando—The Cojuangco family should return the money paid by motorists who used a road inside the Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac to get to the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx), a leader of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said on Friday.

Danilo Ramos, KMP secretary general, said the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB) should order a refund or a creation of a trust fund for farmers after the board stopped the toll collection on the San Miguel access road in the Cojuangco family-owned sugar estate.

The more than seven-kilometer road links the Manila North Road (MacArthur Highway) to the Luisita interchange of the SCTEx.

Julius Corpuz, TRB spokesperson, said the cease and desist order issued by the board on Thursday was served to the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), Jose Cojuangco & Sons Inc. (JCSI) and Brown International Corporate Services Inc. (Bicsi) on Friday afternoon.

Month’s take

Ramos estimated the toll to have reached P2.7 million from May 17 to June 2. Cars are charged P20 while vans and small delivery trucks pay P50 for using the road. Buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles are charged P100.

Told of KMP’s call for toll refund, Corpuz said KMP should make its recommendations in an official letter to the TRB.

Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., who had been answering media queries on the issue, did not reply on Friday when sought for reactions on KMP’s demands for refund or the creation of a trust fund.

But Cojuangco had asserted that the road is private and needed to be repaired or maintained through service fees.

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), the SCTEx’s owner, agreed that it is a private road but told TRB it should be open for free public use in consideration of the construction of the Luisita interchange to spur economic activities in the area and the rest of Central Luzon.

Who’s in charge?

Lawyer Antonio Ligon, HLI counsel, said the company is not the one in charge of collecting toll.

Ligon said 5 km of the road is owned by  Tarlac Development Corp. (TDC), another company owned by the Cojuangcos. HLI, he said, built a 2.7-km extension of that road. The road is maintained by the JCSI.

Cojuangco, when asked, identified Bicsi as the collecting arm. He did not reply when asked who contracted Bicsi for that task. Some tickets bore the acronym “JCSI-BICSI” while others were printed with “SCI-MAC.”

Ramos said President Aquino should also order his relatives to return the money to motorists and farmer-residents in the sugar estate.

He said the “legitimate and rightful owners” of the 6,000-hectare sugar estate are farm workers. He cited the order of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council to the Department of Agrarian Reform to cancel the stock distribution option (SDO) by HLI, which gave farmers shares of stock in the company, and to put the sugar estate under the coverage of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

The case is pending in the Supreme Court, but most farm workers, in a referendum last year, voted to retain their shares of stock.

Also on Friday, 30 leaders of farm workers picketed the DAR Tarlac office, demanding support for alternative livelihood while they await the decision of the Supreme Court in the agrarian dispute.  Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon