On the eve of the 13th year of the Hacienda Luisita massacre, around 500 members of the Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) and their supporters destroyed the walls and perimeter fences of the 500-hectare Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) compound inside the Cojuangco-owned hacienda as they issued an ‘eviction notice’ to the bank.
Tension heated up as hundreds of cops from the Philippine National Police (PNP) Tarlac and RCBC hired security personnel started hurling rocks against the protesters. A suspected intelligence operative nabbed AMBALA chairperson, Florida Sibayan.
Tarlac Chief of Police Supt. Bayani Razalan headed the said dispersal effort.
As of this writing, Razalan said “possible cases for malicious mischief and physical injuries are being prepared against Sibayan for destruction of the RCBC gate and injuring two cops on the head.”
According to AMBALA, the protest held earlier was part of the ‘bungkalan’ campaign of the peasant movement in the country where they assert ownership and over lands already awarded to them but took time to be implemented by government and courts or on idle lands. The Hacienda Luisita farmers aimed to retain their control over the said disputed parcel of lands. The Supreme Court in 2012 ruled with finality the more than half century land dispute case in favor of distribution to the farmers. But the Hacienda Luisita has sold or leased parts of the land, thereby reducing the total land area the farmers initially sought ownership.
“Luisita farmers occupation of the lands is a move to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. It is an assertion not only of their rights to the land. It is a also to claim justice denied to the farmers for decades,” National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan) chairperson Zen Soriano said.
She added, “It is enraging that on the eve of the thirteenth year of the massacre, the farmers continue to suffer injustices and atrocities at the hands of police and military forces at the command of the Cojuangco-Aquinos. No one was held accountable to the violence against the farmers, including the death of the seven farm workers in the massacre in 2004 and more deaths of peasant leaders and their supporters that followed.”
Soriano added, “This attack on the peasantry showed the inaction and empty promises of the Duterte administration on the struggle for genuine agrarian reform.”
New DAR admin to reverse Mariano’s ruling on Luisita
Former Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary Rafael ‘Ka Paeng’ Mariano issued a partial revocation of the conversion of 384 out of 500 hectares of RCBC and areas under the Luisita Land Corporation (formerly Luisita Realty Corporation) due to its failure to develop the land under the terms of the 1996 conversion order.
Members of the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) said in a statement that the ‘eviction notice’ that the farmers presented to the Yuchengco-owned RCBC land was done as the new DAR administration was set to reverse the revocation order of Mariano regarding Luisita land on February 23, 2017.
According to John Milton Lozande, secretary general of UMA, the new DAR leadership would conduct a two day ‘National Stakeholders Forum on Land Use Conversion’ from November 16-17 at the UP Technohub Microtel in Quezon City.
This forum aimed to “harmonize and hasten the processes, procedures, guidelines, documentary requirements, and timelines of different agencies, with respect to the issuances of clearances which are required by DAR to properly treat an application for land use conversion or exemption from agrarian reform coverage.”
Lozande said, “in essence, this forum threatens Ka Paeng’s revocation order.”
Hacienda Luisita Incorporated used to own the 500 hectares of land, which included those that were revoked. Said company then sold these to RCBC, Luisita Realty Corporation (now Luisita Land Corp.) and to Luisita Industrial Park Corporation (LIPCO) for P4 billion, and owed the farmworkers P1.33 billion as their share as previous stockholders.
“It also threatens to reverse Ka Paeng’s junking of the appeal of Tarlac Development Corp. (TADECO) to exempt 358 hectares of lands from land reform as the Cojuangco-Aquinos, who own said company, applied for its conversion into industrial use,” Lozande added.
UMA insisted that other than these two properties, an additional 600 plus hectares of agricultural land still held by various companies of the Cojuangco-Aquinos including that of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT), with the Lorenzos as new co-owners, would be easily converted into other use.
The group said this was the opposite of what the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), which includes President Duterte, agreed to in September 2016 for a two-year moratorium for conversion of agricultural lands.
The President, however, never signed an Executive Order (EO) for it to be binding.
“This also shows President Duterte’s true colors. He was never against the oligarchs, which includes the Cojuangcos, Aquinos, and Lorenzos who own Hacienda Luisita. He is just full of bluster and nothing more,” Lozande ended.
