Group justifies cane burning in Luisita as assertion of right to land

Hacienda Luisita workers. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) on Saturday defended farm workers behind the burning of 200 hectares of sugarcane on Hacienda Luisita last week, calling this an act to assert ownership of the land that has been denied to them by the family of President Benigno Aquino.

Rodel de Mesa, UMA secretary general, said the burning happened at the end of the cropping season and as the first anniversary in April of the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court approaches.

The high court upheld the decision of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council in 2005 to scrap the stocks distribution option (SDO) in 1989 and to distribute to more than 6,000 farm workers 4,915 hectares of the 6,443-hectare estate in Tarlac.

“It is almost a year now but nothing has happened. Instead, the Cojuangco-Aquino [clan has] made all kinds of maneuvers in order to cling to the land and profit from it,” De Mesa said in a statement on Saturday.

The Cojuangco family-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) has no more control of the land  covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) or of the CARP process in the sugar estate since the Supreme Court issued its final ruling, said lawyer Antonio Ligon, HLI spokesperson.

HLI is the company formed by the Cojuangco family’s Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco) and farm workers to manage the SDO in 1989.

De Mesa said among the supposed schemes is the use of financiers who rent the land  from farm workers who, after the 2004 strike, cornered lots and tilled these for cash or food crops to tide them over as the agrarian dispute was pending in the court.

He said the lease arrangement, called “arriendo” and “upa,” has assured cane  for the Central Azucarera de Tarlac, which is owned by Tadeco.

After the strike, farm workers leased out the land at P10,000 a hectare a year. Financiers or planters pay another P1,000 to the farm workers’ associations and another P1,000 to village councils that augment social services.

“Financiers, through their cunning and exploitative ways, reneged on their verbal agreements with farm workers, thus making the farmers always on the losing end,” De Mesa said.

Lito Bais, president of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala), earlier denied that his group encouraged or led the can-burning reprisal.

De Mesa said most farm workers grow rice or vegetables in more than1,000 hectares as they wait for the Department of Agrarian Reform to give them parcels of land initially estimated at more or less 7,000 square meters.

He said the Department of Agriculture has helped by giving vegetable seedlings.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development reported providing some P4 million in loans for livelihood projects.

Noel Mallari, head of the group, Original 1989 Farmworkers, said the arriendo system has buried their members in debt, making them vulnerable to property speculators in the event the land is distributed.

“That is why it is important that the DAR should provide capital so we can immediately cultivate the land and make farming a profitable enterprise,” he said.