ANGELES CITY- Hacienda Luisita farmers have expressed dismay over the P471 million advanced by the government to Pres. Aquino’s family as compensation for lands covered by agrarian reform in estate, amid delays in the payment of P1.3 billion to them as ordered by the Supreme Court in 2012.
This, even as the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), which is owned by the President’s family, was reported to have complained to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that the P471 million was insufficient compensation for some 4,500 hectares covered by land reform.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas Chair Rafael Mariano said that the complaint “smacked of greed,” as he noted that the Cojuangcos have not complied with the Supreme Court’s order for them to pay the farm workers P1.3 billion as share in sale of some 580 hectares of hacienda lands in 1996.
The 580 hectares cover the existing Luisita Industrial Park, the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, and an area turned over the to the Rizal Commercial and Banking Corp. At the same time, Mariano said that the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision ordering land reform in Hacienda Luisita “continues to be bastardized”, as he cited recent events displacing beneficiaries in some 500 hectares of hacienda lands that the Cojuangco-controlled
Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco) has claimed to be exempted from land reform in Barangays Cutcut and Balete in Tarlac City.
“The P1.3 billion debt of the Cojuangcos to the farmworkers is based on the premise that the lands were also owned by the farmworkers who were supposed to have 33.3 percent of HLI shares (under the stock distribution option initiated by former Pres. Corazon Aquino) and was never based on an imagined formula by the President’s relatives and their lawyers,” Mariano oted.
He said that the P417 million turned over by DAR to the Cojuangcos are now being used against farmers who are protesting Tadeco’s claim over 500 hectares in Balete and Cutcut
