Supreme Court readies Hacienda Luisita ruling

HIGH COURT IN SESSION Supreme Court justices, led by Chief Justice Renato C. Corona (center), get ready to hear the oral arguments on the case involving former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the session hall on Tuesday. The other justices in the picture are (from left) Antonio T. Carpio, Bienvenido L. Reyes (behind Corona), Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno and Presbitero J. Velasco Jr. LYN RILLON

The Supreme Court is poised to settle once and for all the decades-old dispute over Hacienda Luisita, agreeing on a motion for reconsideration to redistribute the vast sugar plantation owned by the family of President Benigno Aquino III, the Philippine Daily Inquirer learned Tuesday.

Three Inquirer sources said the high court could likely issue a ruling within the next few days amid an intensifying disagreement between the high tribunal and President Aquino’s administration over the prosecution of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for alleged election sabotage.

The sources, including a senior court official, said the majority of the justices had voted to direct the “total distribution” of the 6,000-hectare sugar plantation run by the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to the 6,296 farmworker-beneficiaries (FWBs).

“The majority of the justices are of the opinion that the stock distribution plan should be dropped altogether and order the total land distribution of the hacienda,” one source said.

Another source said the high court had granted the motions for reconsideration filed by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) and Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (Ambala), a faction of FWBs, which appealed the court’s July 5 ruling scrapping a stock distribution option (SDO) under the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) but allowed the beneficiaries to reaffirm their earlier decision for stock ownership in a vote to be supervised by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) or to opt for land.

Mr. Aquino has vowed during his campaign for the presidency to bring to court his predecessor for alleged corruption and election sabotage in the 2004 and 2007 balloting.

Arroyo as then head of PARC had upheld a DAR ruling in July 2005 rescinding the SDO following a bloody strike in the hacienda in 2004 by farmers who said that the arrangement had not improved their lives contrary to the objective of CARP passed during the administration of Corazon Aquino, the incumbent President’s mother.

Corazon Aquino and Arroyo had a falling out at that time in the midst of the “Hello Garci” controversy. Corazon Aquino was then one of the leaders of a movement calling for Arroyo’s resignation prompted by claims that Arroyo stole the 2004 presidential elections—a charge Arroyo denies.

Corazon Aquino also was among those who first rallied behind Brigadier General Danilo Lim in February 2006 when he allegedly attempted to get the military to withdraw support from Arroyo as a result of the 2004 vote-rigging allegations. Lim, who was jailed for the alleged coup attempt, is now deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Customs.

Reports of a final decision on Hacienda Luisita also followed a stinging criticism last month of Mr. Aquino by a Catholic Church-led multisectoral group that expressed dismay that 17 months into his presidency he had not made significant moves to implement the distribution of more than 1 million of the nation’s prime agricultural lands with barely three years before the expiration of the current agrarian reform program.

The Supreme Court administrator and spokesperson, Jose Midas Marquez, said the tribunal had yet to formally render its decision on pending motions of PARC and Ambala. But he said the petitions were taken up by the magistrates during their regular en banc session Tuesday.

“The resolution on the Hacienda Luisita case was deliberated on, but [no ruling] came out,” Marquez said. Asked why, Marquez said the court en banc was still waiting for the decisions of other justices.

More than coincidental

Senator Miriam Santiago, the agrarian reform secretary during the first Aquino administration, on Tuesday voiced the suspicion that the release of the court decision on the hacienda could be an offshoot of the rift between the executive and the judiciary from Day One of the second Aquino administration, which slammed the appointment of Associate Justice Renato Corona as Chief Justice just before Arroyo stepped down in 2010.

“Someone has to work out an algorithm to determine whether something is coincidental or not. That case has been pending for sometime and then suddenly…” Santiago trailed off with a sigh.

“I am very perplexed like all Filipinos at what’s happening in our country,” she added.

“But as a lawyer, I always grant presumption in favor of the Supreme Court. Just that I want to ask, what took them so long? That should have been done a long time ago,” Santiago said in an ambush interview.

Senator Gregorio Honasan Jr. advised Malacañang not to view a court decision to distribute Hacienda Luisita as a political decision meant to antagonize President Aquino.

“It should not be seen that way especially since the intended beneficiaries are not involved in any way in controversies surrounding the SC and Malacañang,” said Honasan, chairman of the Senate committee on agrarian reform.

“We cannot politicize the agrarian reform law, that’s a centerpiece program of President Corazon Aquino” he added.

“The owner of the hacienda has to comply immediately. They have no choice. When the SC orders, you follow before you use the mechanisms for appeal for reconsideration,” Honasan advised.

He said farmers stand to benefit more from acquiring actual land than the stock distribution option insisted upon by the Luisita management.

“What do you do with a piece of paper indicating your stock ownership? If the corporate management tells you the hacienda failed to make money, what happens then,” Honasan asked.

“The first step is to give these farmers ownership that addresses the social issue. The second step is to educate them and then organize them into agrarian reform communities or beneficiaries and then give them support,” he added.

Referendum

In an earlier interview, Marquez clarified that the tribunal in its July ruling did not order a “referendum” among the FWBs when it revoked the stock distribution plan on the sprawling sugar plantation.

He issued the clarification amid reports that some groups opposed to the tribunal’s ruling had been claiming that the high court had directed the FWBs to choose by majority vote whether or not they wanted to hold titles to land or shares of stock in HLI.

In a news conference announcing the court’s July 5 decision, Marquez himself had used the term “referendum” in explaining the tribunal’s ruling.

But in a subsequent press briefing, Marquez corrected himself, saying that the magistrates did not order the farm workers to take a new vote on the issue of land or stock distribution.

In its 90-page ruling in July, penned by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., the court directed the DAR to “immediately schedule meetings with the farm workers and explain to them the effects, consequences and legal or practical implications of their choices.”

The ruling said the farm workers “will be asked to manifest, in secret voting, their choices in the ballot.”

The term “referendum” was not mentioned in the text of the decision.

Since parties involved had filed their respective motions for reconsideration, Marquez said “it would be best if we all wait for the final resolution of the motion which is forthcoming anyway.”

While 10 justices of the high court upheld the PARC’s 2005 decision to revoke HLI’s SDO, they also voted 6-4 to order a new vote. They said the high tribunal could not “turn a blind eye” to the overwhelming number of farm workers who voted in favor of the SDP during a 1989 referendum.

Corona was the only justice to uphold the argument of the FWBs that said the stock distribution plan was unconstitutional, but he likewise agreed to the referendum.

In its ruling, the court said: “Of the 6,296 FWBs, he or she who wishes to continue as an HLI stockholder is entitled to 18,804.32 HLI shares and, in case the HLI shares already given to him or her is less than 18,804.32 shares, HLI is ordered to issue or distribute additional shares to complete said prescribed number of shares at no cost to the FWB within 30 days from finality of this decision.” With a report from Cathy Yamsuan