Luisita farmers resist move to fence lands

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Farm workers claiming ownership of a 500-hectare land inside Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City denied provoking tension at the disputed property in Barangay Balite there on Monday.

Felix Nacpil, chair of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala), said security guards manning the property bought by the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) inside the sugar estate did not have to fire their guns.

“Why did they have to shoot? We were merely taking out the aluminum roof that they used to fence the area,” Nacpil said on Monday. No one was hurt during the confrontation.

Nacpil said farm workers brought their bolos to cut wires on the fences.

The Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), the company formed by the Cojuangco family and farm workers to manage the stock distribution program, the form of agrarian reform in the country’s largest contiguous sugar estate, denied instigating the confrontation.

“HLI has nothing to do with the supposed violence,” said lawyer Antonio Ligon, HLI spokesperson.

“The property involved is that portion converted from agricultural to industrial, with [the Department of Agrarian Reform’s] participation and acquiescence by [farm workers-beneficiaries],” Ligon said. He said the guards are working for RCBC.

Ligon said he called the lawyer of RCBC to caution the firm that “in trying to put [a] fence [or] implement the writ of ejectment issued by [the municipal trial court], that they should avoid any untoward incident because we don’t want HLI’s name dragged [into the controversy].”

Nacpil said HLI petitioned for land conversion in 1996 and sold the land to a company named Itochu, which pulled out in 2004 on the heels of a strike by workers and farm workers.

The second buyer, Lipco, mortgaged the property to RCBC for P540 million. RCBC took the land when Lipco defaulted on its payments, he said.

Ambala questioned the presence of soldiers in areas near the property. The Army has retained detachments in some of villages in Tarlac City to ward off the return of communist rebels.

A national alliance of urban poor groups assailed the Cojuangco family and President Aquino for tension in the sugar estate.

“It may not be surprising if [President] Aquino will once again prefer to invoke his silence [on this issue], even if the lives of the farmers are at stake,” said Gloria Arellano, head of Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap.

The Supreme Court recently ordered the distribution of lands in the Cojuangco-owned estate, setting a showdown between relatives of the President and farmers demanding  the lands be distributed to them for free. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon