Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio “Gil” delos Reyes. PHOTO FROM GOV.PH
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes on Monday said demands for high compensation by the family of President Benigno Aquino who owned Hacienda Luisita would not stop him from proceeding with distributing the vast sugar plantation in May next year.
De los Reyes stressed that the land distribution process was on track with the timetable of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
Critics, however, said his department had been slow in complying with the Supreme Court decision on Nov. 22, 2011, ordering the distribution of the estate, regarded as a litmus test of the Aquino administration’s sincerity in pushing ahead with agrarian reform as the centerpiece of its social justice program.
“Determination of just compensation for landowners does not stop or delay land distribution,” De los Reyes said in a statement in response to concerns by the farm workers’ organizations that the valuation process could hamper the distribution of the plantation.
“We can proceed with the land distribution even if the valuation is contested by the landowners or the farmer-beneficiaries,” he said, saying the agrarian reform law allows this.
Immediate distribution
The law mandates Land Bank of the Philippines to determine the value of agricultural land covered under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The valuation may be contested, either by the landowners or the beneficiaries, through the DAR Adjudication Board (Darab). The parties are then allowed to elevate the issue to the courts in case of appeal.
“The farmer-beneficiaries will get the land regardless of the value pegged by the DARAB or the courts,” De los Reyes said. He added that a pending ruling on the valuation would not prevent the DAR from pushing through with the distribution next year.
The department, he said, is currently finalizing a preliminary master list of farm workers entitled to portions of Hacienda Luisita. The list, he emphasized, will be made available to the public before the end of September.
“Even the preliminary master list will be made available to the public so that interested parties, particularly farmers’ groups and civil society groups, may scrutinize the list,” he said.
De los Reyes said the list would still be subjected to further screening, where interested parties may appeal to be included or request the exclusion of certain individuals.
The department started on May 18 the process of beneficiary identification, screening and validation in the 10 Hacienda Luisita barangays, where some 8,550 potential beneficiaries took part in a series of interviews conducted by DAR personnel in basketball courts and elementary schools. The process was initiated a week after the DAR received a copy of the Supreme Court’s final and executory decision.
P2.5M per hectare
In its decision last year, the high tribunal ordered the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmworkers who had been tilling the land since Nov. 21, 1989, the date a stock distribution option was hammered out. This arrangement was nullified by the court, saying it did not benefit the farmers.
Based on the Supreme Court ruling, just compensation was set at P40,000 per hectare of the 4,915-ha plantation to be subdivided among its 6,296 workers. It was the price tag given by the Cojuangcos to the estate at that time the stock option deal was reached.
The President’s family now wants just compensation to be pegged at 2006 prices, or up to P2.5 million per ha—the rate upheld by dissenting Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who is now the Chief Justice. Lawyers believe that although the Supreme Court has made a ruling, the case would again be thrown to the courts if Landbank, the DAR and the Cojuangcos do not reach a valuation agreement.
But De los Reyes yesterday said the screening of beneficiaries could prove to be the more contentious issue.
Farmers groups say the list has been existing all along and that De los Reyes has been sitting on it because he still awaits a signal from Malacañang.
De los Reyes has been slammed by Catholic bishops for his lackadaisical performance in implementing agrarian reform. Around 1 million hectares of the country’s most productive estates remain to be distributed with two years to go before the CARP ends.