Farmers storm Luisita, stake claim on land

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—More than 100 farm workers, many of them women, in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City on Thursday stormed a disputed agrarian reform land to plant rice and vegetables there, taking advantage of the wet fields at the start of the rainy season.

“We won’t back off. We need to plant now while the land is wet after the rains. We are all hungry,” said Florita Sibayan, chair of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (Ambala).

The workers did not heed policemen who asked them to leave a portion of a 358-hectare land in Hacienda Luisita in Barangay Balete and Cutcut in Tarlac City.

The police were deployed by the Tarlac police office to “convince the farmers to leave,” said Senior Supt. Alex Sintin, Tarlac police director.

The area is not part of the 4,500-ha agrarian land segregated from the 6,300-ha sugar plantation owned by relatives of President Aquino.

Notice of coverage

But on Dec. 17, 2013, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) issued the Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco) a notice of coverage (NOC) for the area.

Tadeco had contested the NOC, said lawyer Donato Faylona, head counsel of Hacienda Luisita Inc. and Tadeco.

Sibayan said they went to the site because a Tadeco security officer, Villamor Lagunera, had not fulfilled an agreement allowing Ambala members to grow crops until the issue on the property was resolved.

Faylona said Lagunera could not have had the authority to approve or endorse the alleged agreement, arguing, “there is no legal basis as the NOC is under question, which is pending with DAR.”

Violation

The tillers stayed put, Sibayan said, because Tadeco was the “first to violate the NOC” by leasing 50 ha of the lot for a solar energy project of a German company.

Farm workers had tilled the piece of property after the Cojuangco family stopped cultivating sugar cane, following a labor strike in 2004, she said.

The Supreme Court in 2012 directed DAR to distribute 4,500 ha of land to 6,200 farm workers in Hacienda Luisita. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon