The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) noted yesterday that the list included 61 “outsiders” known to be residents of Barangays Dolores, Maliwalo, Laoang, Ungot, San Miguel, Maligaya in Tarlac City, Barangay Anupul in Bamban town, and as far as Sta. Veronica in Nueva Ecija, all beyond Hacienda Luisita.
The 358-hectare land to be distributed is located in Barangays Balete and Cutcut 2nd within the hacienda and was covered by a Notice of Coverage belatedly issued by the DAR on Dec. 17, 2013. It is part of over 4,000 hectares of hacienda lands ordered in 2012 by the Supreme Court for distribution to farm workers under the agrarian reform law.
“The DAR and the Cojuangcos are at it again,” said KMP Secretary General Antonio Flores, as he also noted “the inclusion of the Cojuangcos’ house help and stable workers by the department during the first sham land reform in the 4,099 hectares of Hacienda Luisita where each beneficiary was allotted only 6,600 square meters of land.”
Flores noted that the lands already distributed by DAR through raffle last year were “ridiculously non-contiguous.”
“Worse, the 6,600-square-meter land for each is not intact but was dispersed in different locations. This ‘tambiolo’ land reform in Hacienda Luisita is the height of stupidity. DAR’s distribution scheme is designed to displace the farm workers and divide their ranks,” Flores stressed.
He said that he expected the DAR to do the same thing to the 358 hectares also up for distribution.
“This fake land distribution in Hacienda Luisita is the main reason why farmworker-beneficiaries become easy prey to Cojuangco dummies.
This has led to the proliferation of the socalled arriendo system that preserved the President’s relatives’ control over the lands,” he added.
Under the arriendo system, alleged representatives of the Cojuangco clan lease back on long term bases and at cheap cost the lands already awarded to hacienda farm workers.
Lawyer Jobert Pahilga, counsel for Alyansa ng Manggagawang Bukid ng Asyenda Lusita (Ambala) and executive trustee of 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 in lieu of the stock distribution option scheme that the Cojuangcos resorted to during the term of former Pres. Cory Aquino to evade land distribution.”
Flores also said that “regardless of whether the 358 hectares would be raffled off or not, the fact is that under the Aquino-controlled DAR, the Cojuangco family will once again receive hundreds of millions of pesos for the 358 hectares without eradicating their stranglehold over the whole hacienda.”
KMP said the Cojuangco family has already received P471 million as compensation for the earlier distribution of 4,099 hectares of the hacienda under land reform.
The KMP called on Hacienda Luisita farmworkers “to resist and expose the corruption of the Cojuangco-Aquinos through intensified protests.”
