CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The Unyon ng Maggagawan sa Agricultura (UMA) decried yesterday another scheme of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) called “sugar block farming” at Hacienda Luisita, crafted allegedly to benefit Pres. Aquino’s family which used to own the vast estate in Tarlac.
In a statement, UMA said DAR has been citing “great opportunities” in sugar block farming, to convince recent beneficiaries of land reform at the hacienda to participate in it. “It will only ensure the profi tability for the Cojuango and Aquino-owned Central Azucarera de Tarlac, at the expense of the thousands of Hacienda Luisita workers,” UMA said.
UMA explained that “ sugar block farming in essence is the official structural complement of the illicit and unjust aryenda system now prevalent in the hacienda.” Under the “aryenda” system, a land reform beneficiary who has no capital needed to make his hacienda land productive, lease out their farm to an “aryandador” for a meager P7,000 a year for a threeyear period.
The DAR claimed it had already distributed land titles to about 96 percent of land reform beneficiaries at Hacienda Luisita. But UMA said that “behind the much-hyped land distribution of the Luisita estate is in fact a cunning and predatory scheme which perpetuates the haciendero control of the Cojuangco-Aquinos over thousands of hectares of agricultural lands.”
It explained that “block farming allows a farm manager to control 30 to 60 hectares of individually-titled farm lots.
So-called farmer benefi ciaries would have to place their lots as their share in a block.” “After DAR’s sham land distribution, farmers whose lots would be included in a block farm would just be hired as the slaving farmworkers that they were for decades and will split profits, if any, with the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organization (ARBO) officers and financiers – an organization that will essentially serve the same function as the Cojuangco- Aquino’s Luisita Estate Management Group,” UMA also said.
It noted that under this scheme, “farmers will have practically no control over their lots in a block farm and will lose their right to till.” UMA said that “the most glaring manifestation of this fraudulent government scheme is the designation of Arsenio Valentino, a known Cojuangco-Aquino sugar supervisor under the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) as head of DAR’s co-called ARBO.”
It also cited the active role of former Land Transportation Office chief Virgue Torres in the “aryendo” system now prevailing in some parts of the hacienda. The group compared the sugar block farming to the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) implemented in the hacienda during the term of the late Pres. Corazon Aquino, in lieu of actual land distribution. It noted that the Supreme Court later revoked SDO.
