In a report by Bulatlat in December last year, 89-year old retired sugar farm worker Ernesto Basilio said that he, together with thousands of original hacienda workers, have struggled to own the land even before the Cojuangcos acquired the hacienda in 1958 from its Spanish owners.

Basillio said he was among the founding members of ULWU who staged a strike sometime in 1957 to force the Spanish owners to recognize their union that was then fighting for land distribution.

The Cojuangcos were only able to acquire the hacienda by using government funds on the pretext that the lands will be distributed to its tenants after 10 years, or in 1968.

The Cojuangcos, however, did not comply with its agreement with government. It was only in 1980, or 12 years after, when the government of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos filed a case before a Manila court to enforce the 1958 agreement to distribute the land to the hacienda’s tenants.

In 1985, the court decided in favor of the government, compelling the hacienda owners to turn over the land to the Ministry of Agrarian Reform for appropriate land distribution. But the motive of the court and former President Marcos was suspect as the decision was handed down at the height of the campaign against the Marcos dictatorship. Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino was emerging as the moral force of the anti-dictatorship campaign after her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., Marcos’ chief political rival, was gunned down allegedly by government troops in 1983.

Before the hacienda land could be distributed to the sugar farmers, a people’s uprising against the Marcos dictatorship brought Cojuangco-Aquino to the seat of power, assuming the presidency of a revolutionary government in February 1986.

The turn-around

In 1987, the Cojuangco-Aquino government enacted the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). Part of the challenge to the new president was to fulfill its promise to distribute Hacienda Luisita to the sugar farmers.

As a land distribution scheme, the Cojuangcos implemented the Stock Distribution Option (SDO), a provision under the CARL that allows landlords to operate their landholdings as corporations. Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) was incorporated. Instead of distributing the land to the farmer worker beneficiaries (FWB), they were made stockholders of the agri-corporation.

The SDO also allowed the Cojuangcos to convert the agricultural land to non-agricultural uses. So far, more than 2000 hectares from the original 6,000 hectares have been converted to industrial, commercial and residential purposes.

At the onset, Galang said this meant lesser man-days (workdays) for the FWBs. In fact, during off-milling season, they were only able to work one day a week and were forced to incur loans from the management. After paying off debts, they are left with a measly take home pay of P9.50 a week.

But in the long term, Galang said the conversion of the land to other purposes negatively affected their rightful claim to the land. “Kapag na-convert ang lupa, mawawalan kami ng trabaho at sa kalaunan ay mapapalayas na kami dito sa asyenda at tuluyan na kaming tatanggalan ng karapatan sa lupa, (Once the lands are converted to other uses, we will lose our jobs and eventually be evicted from the hacienda. Our rightful claim to the land will be lost),” he said.

The Strike

Mahinay noted that the valiant stand of the strikers at the picket line has compelled DAR to act on the petition of the farm worker beneficiaries (FWBs) to revoke the Stock Distribution Plan (SDP) of HLI.

The FWBs filed the petition in November 2003, a month after retired and active HLI supervisors filed a similar petition to the same agency.

The DAR, however, did not act on the petition until after the strike was staged in November last year. After almost a year of investigation, DAR recommended in September to recall HLI’s SDP because, it said, the lives of FWBs did not improve but have worsened under the SDP. The investigation also showed that the HLI violated several provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) regarding HLI operations.

“The FWBs were able to maximize the strike, persisting even after the AJ was issued,” Mahinay said.

According to Mahinay, there is an 80 to 90 percent probability that the land will be distributed to the FWBs.

The final decision will be handed down by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Committee (PARC), the highest governing body of the government’s agrarian reform program. It is expected to announce its decision on Nov. 19.

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