But the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said this development was but “a maneuver to displace legitimate farm workers from the lands they are collectively cultivating” and was designed to provide “pabaon” to the Cojuangco family as Pres. Aquino’s term ends this year.
The KMP noted that the Cojuangco clan had already received P471.5 million paid as compensation for 4,099 hectares of Hacienda Luisita lands. “The money was sourced from the controversial and corruption-driven Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP),” it noted.
“In connivance with the Aquino-controlled DAR, the Cojuangco family will once again receive hundreds of millions of pesos for the 358 hectares amid the continuing stranglehold of the family over the whole hacienda,” KMP Secretary General Antonio Flores said.
The KMP said the lands to be raffled off cover 258 hectares in Barangay Balete and 100 hectares in Barangay Cutcut 2nd which were actually covered by a Notice of Coverage belatedly issued by the DAR on Dec. 17, 2013.
Lawyer Jobert Pahilga, executive trustee of the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra) noted that “The Supreme Court in 2012 reiterated and ordered the distribution of all agricultural lands in Hacienda Luisita as it junked the DAR and the Cojuangcos’ maneuver to evade land distribution through the stock distribution option scheme.”
The KMP earlier said that representatives of the Cojuangco family have been leasing back at low price and over long terms hacienda lands already raffled off to farm workers.
The KMP called on Hacienda Luisita farmworkers to “resist and expose the brazen corruption of the Cojuangco- Aquinos through intensified protests.”
Flores noted that “the 358 hectares are the very same lands where the farm workers are carrying out their collective bungkalan (cultivation) campaign.”
