WHAT WENT BEFORE: Hacienda Luisita

In February 2010, Benigno Aquino III, then a senator and a presidential candidate, said he would redistribute the family-owned Hacienda Luisita within five years as prescribed by the new agrarian reform law.

He said his main concern was to see to it that the property would be distributed to tenants “without the debt.”

Mr. Aquino also promised to complete the distribution of more than a million hectares of privately owned estates that had so far eluded coverage under the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) initiated by his mother, former President and democracy icon Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino.

But months after assuming the presidency, he announced in August last year that he had adopted a “hands-off policy” on the controversy surrounding Hacienda Luisita.

Mr. Aquino said the people directly involved in the sugar estate—the farmer-beneficiaries, members of his family and other stockholders in Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI)—should decide the fate of the estate, not outsiders.

The President said he had divested himself of interests in the plantation that originally totaled 6,500 hectares in Tarlac.

The CARP was Corazon Aquino’s centerpiece program to promote social justice and agricultural development. But HLI remained intact after farmers voted for the stock distribution option (SDO) instead of land distribution—a loophole that critics said watered down the agrarian reform program.

SDO canceled

Following a strike and a violent dispersal of protesters by police and military forces on Nov. 16, 2004, that left at least seven workers dead and dozens wounded, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) canceled the SDO. The DAR said the SDO had failed to improve the lives of the beneficiaries.

In May 2006, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council rejected HLI’s motion to reconsider the SDO revocation. But in June 2006, the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order against the distribution of the estate.

On Aug. 6, 2010, a compromise agreement was signed allowing the farmers to choose between the SDO scheme or distribution of some 1,300 ha of land. HLI officials said more than 7,000 farmers or around 70 percent of the hacienda’s 10,500-strong workforce voted for the SDO.

Some unions slammed the deal as “illegal” and “a sham,” pointing out that redistribution should cover 4,415 ha of the estate, instead of 1,300 ha.

But even as the deal was criticized, farmers still lined up on Aug. 12, 2010, to receive their share of the initial P20-million financial settlement from HLI. This included a farmer who owned some 2,400 shares in HLI under the SDO and received P347 for it.

According to HLI officials, the P20 million was part of a P150-million “financial assistance package”—the balance of which, HLI said, would be released once the Supreme Court approved the compromise deal.

The Cojuangcos acquired the estate after its Spanish owners sold out, fearing a communist Huk rebellion and labor problems.

Loans covering the deal from the Government Service Insurance System and Manufacturer’s Trust of New York were guaranteed by the government on condition that the estate would be distributed to farmers within 10 years.

Compiled by Kate Pedroso, Inquirer Research

Source: Inquirer Archives