Hacienda Luisita beneficiaries include Aquino help—KMP

Hacienda Luisita workers. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

A militant farmers group has alleged that the land reform beneficiaries that the Hacienda Luisita management identified in a preliminary list released recently by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) included “horse stable and house helpers of President Aquino’s relatives”.

But the leftist Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) did not provide names or produce evidence to support its allegation, saying that the claim was based on a “deeper scrutiny” by two groups representing Hacienda Luisita farmers.

Provisional list

On Oct. 31, the DAR issued a preliminary list of 5,365 farm workers who will receive parcels of land from Hacienda Luisita, the country’s biggest sugar estate owned by the Cojuangco relatives of Mr. Aquino.

Another set of 1,221 farm workers, on the other hand, was placed under a provisional list due to deficiencies in documentary evidence to prove the validity of their claim.

In 1988, when the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program took effect, Hacienda Luisita offered an option to own shares of stock instead of land to the farmers, sparking a long court battle.

Last May, the Supreme Court upheld with finality a Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) 2005 decision to scrap the stock distribution option (SDO) and order the distribution of 4,915 hectares of Hacienda Luisita to 6,296 farm workers.

Since then, the DAR has sought to verify two lists of farm workers who are supposed to receive land based on that decision.

Inclusion-exclusion

The DAR expects to release its final list of Hacienda Luisita beneficiaries by the first quarter of 2013, following an “inclusion-exclusion process,” in which those who believe they should be in the list are given a chance to prove their claim, as well as those who believe others in the list should not have been included.

Blatant, shameless

But the KMP said the preliminary list released by the DAR was “a shameless political maneuver by President Aquino’s family, the Cojuangcos, to keep control over the sprawling Hacienda Luisita estate and evade land distribution.”

It said the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita and the United Luisita Workers’ Union, after a deeper scrutiny, found many flaws in both the preliminary and provisional lists.

“Many of those listed by the DAR in the provisional list were legitimate farm workers and were asked to submit so many documentary requirements. At the same time, those who were in the preliminary master list are not farm workers, but rather horse stable and house helpers of President Aquino’s relatives,” the group said.

“We condemn this blatant and shameless maneuver by the Cojuangcos to deny Hacienda Luisita farm workers of their rights to own the lands,” said KMP deputy secretary general Randall Echanis.

“Obviously, this move by the DAR enjoys the blessings of no less than President Aquino,” he said.

Ganging up

The KMP also assailed what it described as a “highly questionable verification process” that the DAR is using in its investigation of claims on Hacienda Luisita land.

“Aquino and the DAR are obviously ganging up against Hacienda Luisita farmers and are using the bogus CARPER (the law extending the CARP for another five years) to place Cojuangco loyalists and dummies as fake beneficiaries,” Echanis said.