Luisita farmers to join National Day of Outrage on August 18

Some farm workers of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and members of farmers groups will stage a nationwide “condemnation rally," or a “National Day of Outrage," on August 18, the day set by the Supreme Court (SC) for hearing arguments on the HLI land dispute. HLI farm workers are currently divided. Some favor the compromise agreement reached by HLI and the farm workers on Friday. However, some farmers do not accept the agreement and they are the ones who will be joining the condemnation rally. Representatives of HLI and two farmers' groups, the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (AMBALA) and the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU), signed the agreement in Tarlac on Friday. However, factions of AMBALA and ULWU will also be the ones joining the August 18 rally in front of the Supreme Court building in Manila. They will gather to oppose the compromise deal signed last week between the Cojuangco-owned HLI and the farm workers. Those who will be joining the rallies include the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya). Rallies will be held by farmers in other parts of the country, including UMA chapter members composed of sugar workers in Batangas, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and other farm workers in Mindanao. Compromise agreement The compromise agreement signed between HLI and farmers' representatives gives farmers two options: to receive land parcels or retain their stocks based on the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) deal signed in 1989. The signatories were: Noel Mallari, Vice-chairman of AMBALA; Eldifonso Pingol, Vice-President of ULWU; lawyer Eufrocinio Dela Merced Jr. for HLI, and Julio Suniga and Windsor Andaya for the HLI supervisory group. The 12,000 farmer-beneficiaries are also entitled to P150 million in “financial assistance" from the HLI in settlement of all claims — P20 million of which will be given upon signing of the agreement as a sign of “goodwill." The remaining P130 million will be given to the farmers on a staggered basis once the agreement has been approved by the Supreme Court. The high court is set to hear HLI's 2006 petition to revoke an order from the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) to distribute 4,915 hectares of the land to the farmers and to cancel the SDO scheme. "We will bring this message across the nation, land and justice are non-separable and non-negotiable. Chief Justice Renato Corona and the 14 other justices have no option but to junk this bogus and all-out betrayal of the millennium," said UMA national coordinator Edna Velarde. Referendum A referendum participated in by farmer-beneficiaries from August 6 to 8 has already gathered 7,302 signatures, around 70 percent of the total 10,502 farm workers of the Hacienda Luisita. ULWU acting president Lito Bais said the referendum was "illegal" and was a "desperate attempt" of the Cojuangco-owned firm to deceive the farm workers. In a press conference in Quezon City on Tuesday, Bais said the P150-million financial assistance — a part of it is set to be given to the farmers on Thursday — was a two-edged sword only meant to benefit the HLI. "Kapag ibinigay nga ang pera sa Thursday, suhol lang iyon. Kung hindi naman ibinigay, malinaw na panlilinlang lang ito [If the financial assistance is given, we consider it as bribe. If it's not given, it means the farmers were merely tricked]," Bais said. The high court earlier had to reset oral arguments for the Hacienda Luisita case to August 18 after the court requested the HLI to submit a list of the stockholders and their corresponding shareholdings. Supreme Court spokesman and administrator Midas Marquez admitted that the oral arguments could be postponed if the HLI fails to submit the list. Some signatories allegedly 'not real' beneficiaries Some farmers alleged that some of the signatories in the August 6 to 8 referendum were not "real" beneficiaries but merely owned small HLI stock shares. In a press conference in Quezon City, Lawyer Jobert Ilarde Pahilga, of a splinter group of AMBALA, showed to media an updated list of the more than 10,500 farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita, a vast agricultural land in Tarlac owned by the family of President Benigno Aquino III. Pahilga said there could have been "misrepresentation" in the crafting of the compromise deal. However, Pahilga admitted he could not yet disclose how many of the 7,000 signatories are small shareholders or are already dead, because his group has yet to see the referendum results. Pointing to the thick document containing the list of farmer-beneficiaries, the lawyer said some of the beneficiaries were relatively "newer" farm workers who had just been recently hired by HLI and had been entitled to small shares of stocks. "Iyong iba dito, ang shares lang 1, 2, 4, or 6 percent. Nagtrabaho lang sila ng konti at nasama na sa payroll. Hindi sila lehitimong mambubukid (Some of them hold shares of only 1, 2, 4, or 6 percent. They just worked a bit and thus got included in the payroll. They are not legitimate farmers)," said the lawyer, adding that once a farm worker gets included in the payroll, he or she — under a 1989 memorandum of agreement on the land dispute — is "legitimized" to become a stockholder. "Pero dapat ang i-recognize lamang ay ang original [beneficiaries] (But only the original beneficiaries should be recognized)," Pahilga told GMANews.TV, referring to the almost 6,000 Hacienda Luisita farmers from 11 villages covered by the 1989 MOA and who the lawyer considered were the "legitimate" beneficiaries. Pahilga also alleged that some of the 7,302 signatories might even be already dead. He said this was what happened in 1998 when farmer-beneficiaries of Luisita submitted a proposal to the HLI regarding the land dispute, wherein they wanted among others the distribution among them of 2,000 hectares of land and a P200-million financial assistance. Pahilga said his group found out that at least 10 of the farmer signatories in the proposal were already dead when it was prepared. "Paanong nakakapirma ang patay na? (How can a dead man sign an agreement?)," he said. In the compromise deal reached on Friday, the signatories were Eldifonso Pingol and Noel Mallari, both of whom Pahilga claimed no longer represented the entire Luisita farm workers. Pingol used to be ULWU vice president, while Mallari was AMBALA chairperson. List of beneficiaries Pahilga said the identities of these shareholders would only be revealed once the HLI submits a list of the beneficiaries in the compromise deal, as requested by the SC. The court is asking for the list from the HLI as part of the scheduled presentation of arguments on August 18. The hearing is for the 2006 petition by the HLI to revoke an order from the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) to distribute 4,915 hectares of the land to the farmers. After the list is submitted to the court, Pahilga said his group then would "scrutinize" it to determine who among the more than 7,000 signatories were either actually dead or are small-time shareholders, whom he said, do "not represent the real farmer-beneficiaries." The farmers have appealed to President Aquino, whose family owns Hacienda Luisita, not to distance himself from the dispute. "Huwag sana siya maghugas kamay. Huwag niyang sabihing hindi siya makikialam. Kailangan niyang harapin ito," said ULWU acting president Lito Bais. (We are asking him not to wash his hands off the issue. He shouldn't tell us he won't step into the matter. He has to handle this.) String of charges Bais said in the same press conference that even if Pingol was still vice president when ULWU president Rene Galang left for Australia last year, Pingol was not "recognized" to replace Galang since the members already lost their trust in him. Bais told GMANews.TV that even before the "Hacienda Luisita massacre" in 2004 — where 14 people including two children were killed — Pingol had allegedly been "meeting with and forming alliance with HLI officials" to settle the land dispute deal, which is why he was "tiniwalag sa grupo (expelled from ULWU)." Pahilga and Bais suspected that Pingol might have jumped the fence after getting favorable "compromises" with the land owners, including being given a 70-hectare land which he has already used as a bamboo plantation. "Iyang si Pingol, naging bodyguard na ni Peping (Pingol has already become a bodyguard of Peping)," Bais said in describing how Pingol virtually became indebted to the HLI. Jose "Peping" Cojuangco Jr., uncle of President Aquino, is among the incorporators of Hacienda Luisita. Current AMBALA president Felix Nacpil said Pingol and Mallari were not "authorized" to represent their groups. AMBALA and ULWU said they plan to press charges of indirect contempt against Pingol and Mallari for entering in a compromise deal claiming to represent farmers who they supposedly no longer represent. The groups also plan to file a similar complaint against the HLI. Pahilga added that if the awarding of the P20-million financial assistance from the HLI pushes through, his group could file additional charges of estafa. This is aside from the plan of the two farmers' groups to file a separate petition to declare the compromise agreement as null and void, because the parties concerned were not properly represented. –VVP/JV, GMANews.TV