Luisita lawyer defends DAR action

A TRACTOR runs over land planted with palay in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province as farmworkers fight over use of land, a problem said to have resulted from DAR’s “tambiolo” (raffle) system in distributing lots. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) under former President Benigno Aquino III had distributed land in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province based on a 2012 order of the Supreme Court, according to the lawyer of the sugar estate.

Antonio Ligon, counsel and spokesperson of the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), said the DAR carried out the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in Hacienda Luisita properly.

Ligon was reacting to incoming Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano’s announcement that a review of CARP in Luisita was among his priorities in the first 100 days of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Mariano, former Anakpawis party-list representative and a longtime peasant leader in Central Luzon, had been challenged by the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) to “nullify the fake CARP in Luisita.”

HLI is 70 percent owned by the Cojuangco family members, including the late President Corazon Aquino in whose term the CARP was signed into law in 1988.

But stock shares were initially given to more than 6,000 farm workers in Luisita in 1989. The farmers went on strike in 2004 to press the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council in 2004 to cancel the stocks distribution program (SDP) and to give them lands instead.

In 2012, the Supreme Court directed DAR to give away 4,500 hectares of the 6,000-hectare sugar estate to over 6,000 workers who agreed to the SDP in 1989.

The order also required farmers to be paid at least P1.3 billion from the proceeds of the sale of two parcels of land and to compensate the land owner, using a 1989 valuation.

Ligon said, “I personally have no reason to doubt the competence and sincerity of Secretary Paeng Mariano. As to implementing genuine agrarian reform in Luisita, the 2012 SC decision [issued when the late Chief Justice Renato Corona was still in office] is being implemented by the government,” Ligon said in a text message.

He said all “government actions should be presumed done with regularity or in accordance with law.”

“Likewise, I believed that outgoing Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes did his job to the best of his abilities and in compliance with his mandate,” Ligon said.

He said, “The social justice provision in our Constitution should be the concern of all Filipinos not just one sector alone, for social justice applies to all sectors as well. As Filipinos, we have to make sure that we will always uphold the rule of law, whatever areas of concern do we have in this present dispensation.”

But some farmer-beneficiaries believed the process of land distribution had been flawed.

Florita Sibayan, chair of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita, said the agrarian lots given to them, measuring 6,600 square meters per recipient, were allocated using numbers picked out from a “tambiolo (lottery drum).”

“The DAR did not recognize our efforts in cultivating the lands after the strike, so if you live in Tarlac City, your lot is in La Paz [town]. If you don’t have money to pay for a tricycle ride you can’t till the land DAR assigned to you,” she said.

Sibayan also said farmers she presumed were loyal to the Cojuangco family received contiguous lands they leased out to sugarcane growers.

UMA member Gi Estrada said Mariano should make De los Reyes answer for the use of the Disbursement Acceleration Program for compensating the Cojuango family for Luisita lands.

But Antonio Parungao, former DAR undersecretary for legal affairs, said the P7.932 billion given to DAR “was in fact the sum of the appropriations by Congress for landowners compensation in the DAR budgets for 2010 and 2011.”

Jimmy Soto, a farmer in Floridablanca town in Pampanga province, said Mariano should investigate DAR personnel allegedly involved in canceling titles awarded to farmers.

Danny Carranza, head of the Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungan Panlipunan (Katarungan), said the group supports Mariano’s commitment to end the evictions of farmers.

He said Mariano should also investigate cases of farmers who were forcibly removed from their land.Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon