Only DAR can partition Luisita land, says chief

Only the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) can survey and partition Hacienda Luisita, the sprawling sugar estate owned by relatives of President Benigno Aquino III that the Supreme Court recently ordered distributed to its tenants, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said Thursday.

De los Reyes made the statement after receiving reports of unauthorized individuals surveying and assigning farm lots to farmer-beneficiaries of  the 5,000-hectare plantation in Tarlac.

“We have authorized nobody to act for the DAR. Only the DAR will determine who the farmer-beneficiaries are and which farm lots will be assigned to each of them,” De los Reyes said.

While farmer-tenants could plant vegetables and other crops in certain areas of Luisita for their subsistence, this did not mean they already owned the lots, De los Reyes said.

Late last year, the Supreme Court ruled 14-0 that the estate, which belonged to the Cojuangco family of which Mr. Aquino and his mother, the late President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, were a part, should be distributed to the 6,296 farmer-workers who had tilled the land for decades.

The high court also declared that the stock distribution option under which the tenants had been given shares in Hacienda Luisita Inc. in lieu of land was not in the spirit of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law which was enacted during the term of President Cory Aquino.

De los Reyes stressed that the landmark decision of the Supreme Court was not yet final. As such, he said, the location and size of the tenants’ lots could still change.