Luisita farmers yet to be paid P1.3B
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Not a single centavo has been paid to more than 6,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries in the estate formerly owned by the family of President Aquino in Tarlac province, five years after the Supreme Court ordered Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to pay them P1.3 billion from the sale of 580.51 hectares there.
The Inquirer confirmed the delay in payments from parties involved in the transaction: HLI, farm worker leader Noel Mallari, supervisor Windsor Andaya, and Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala).
The amounts will come from assets acquired by HLI and its subsidiary, Centenary Holdings Inc., from the sale of estate land. But these will be released only at the conclusion of a special audit of these assets that the Supreme Court requires.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes said the high court was resolving a motion for clarification pertaining to the procedures of the audit. The petition was filed by Navarro Amper & Co., a partner of Deloitte, one of the three auditing firms the Supreme Court appointed in January 2014.
Ambala has blamed the delay on HLI, which supposedly appealed to replace Deloitte. But lawyer Antonio Ligon, HLI spokesperson, said the company did not file any motion excluding Deloitte.
“The choice of Deloitte [was made] through the court. Per record, it was Deloitte that filed a clarification. As to the content of the motion, we are not privy [to the details] because HLI has no control over the choice of auditor,” Ligon said.
A notice issued by the Supreme Court about the special audit panel showed that HLI had recommended 10 auditing firms, including Deloitte, through its local partner, Navarro Amper & Co. The auditors were given 90 days to complete their task.
The high court ordered the special audit in a resolution dated Nov. 22, 2011. It also restated its July 5, 2011, decision to uphold the cancellation of the stock distribution option (SDO) began in 1989, as ordered in 2005 by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC).
Instead of the SDO, the PARC had directed the distribution of lands to the more than 6,000 stockholders among farm workers.
Asked if the court had received any audit findings, lawyer Theodore Te, assistant court administrator and chief of the Supreme Court’s public information office, said in a text message: “The case is pending so it’s not information that is immediately accessible.”
In a report to the high court on April 14, Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Luis Meinrado Pañgulayan for legal affairs said the agency had no further role with respect to the special audit.
Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura, which is assisting Ambala, said the sale of Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) by the Cojuangco family to the Lorenzo family in late 2014 could jeopardize the payment of P1.3 billion to farm workers. CAT is not an asset of HLI, Ligon said.
Mallari, president of the Original 1989 Farmworkers Beneficiaries, said the P1.3 billion was a “matter of life and death” to farm workers as they could use the money to plant cash crops other than sugarcane.
“The Department of Agrarian Reform and the Department of Agriculture have not helped us go into productive farming so many of us are forced to sell the parcels, lease these out, or take out loans. This agrarian reform program is not working,” he said.
Several members of FARM Luisita, another group of tillers in the hacienda, have applied for loans and borrowed equipment from churches, proving that planting corn, vegetables and rice has brought more income than sugarcane growing or leasing out plots.
