CLARK FREEPORT – Presidential uncle former Congressman Jose “Peping”Cojuangco said beneficiaries of land reform in Hacienda Luisita are now “selling” their lands amid lackof government support to make their small lands productive.
“What can you do with 3,000 square metersof land?” asked Cojuangco, younger brother of Pres. Aquino’s late mother former Pres. Corazon Aquino.In a telephone interview, Cojuangco saidwhile beneficiaries of land reform in Hacienda Luisita are barred fromselling their lands, they have devised ways to circumvent this prohibitionin order to survive.
The hacienda used to be wholly owned by the Aquino-Cojuangco family until it was subjected to land reform as mandated by the Supreme Court two years ago.Cojuangco said that the government’s landreform program stops at mere land distribution, leaving the beneficiaries to fend for themselves.
He stressed that this was not in the spirit of land reform which he helped craft when the program was initiated way back during the Macapagal administration and during his stint in the land reform committeewhen he was still in Congress. Cojuangco lamentedstatistics showing that 20 percent of Filipino families experience hunger. “We are an agriculturalcountry. This hould not be the case,” he added.
Leaders of the Alyansa ng Manggagawang ukid ng AsyandaLuisita (Ambala) have accused the Cojuangco- controlled Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco)of colluding with the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in allegedlymanipulating land distribution in the hacienda. “From an original land area of 6,453 hectares, the Cojuangcos only declared4,915 hectares to be agricultural in 1989. Of these, 500 hectares were approved for conversion into non-agricultural uses, thus making them exempt from agrarianreform.
Another 80.5 hectares was subtracted to make way for the Subic-Clark- Tarlac Expressway (SCTEx),” Ambala said. Ambala also noted that a survey conducted by FF Cruz Co, a company hired by the DAR, in early April last year further exempted more than 200 hectares of hacienda land from agrarian reform.
This, even as the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agricultura (UMA) decried so-called “sugar block farming” being encouraged by DAR at Hacienda Luisita. 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 profitability for the Cojuango and Aquino- owned Central Azucarerade Tarlac, at the expense of the thousands of Hacienda Luisita workers,” UMA said. UMA explained that “sugar block farming inessence is the official structural complement of the illicit and unjust aryendo system now prevalent in the hacienda.”
Under the “aryendo”system, a land reform beneficiary who has no capital needed to make his hacienda land productive, lease out theirfarm to an “aryandador” for a meager P7,000 a year for a three-year period. But UMA said that “behind the much-hypedland 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 furthered that “block farming allows a farmmanager to control 30 to 60 hectares of individually- titled farmlots. Socalled farmer beneficiaries would have to place their lots as their share ina block.” It noted that under this scheme, “farmers will have practically no control over their lots in block farm and will lose their right to till.”
UMA said that “the most glaring manifestation of this fraudulent government scheme isthe designation of Arsenio Valentino, a known Cojuangco-Aquino sugarsupervisor under the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) as head of DAR’s cocalled 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.Amid Cojuangco’s lament on the fate of land reform beneficiaries, the DAR earlier said it had signed a partnership agreement with Tarlac College of Agriculture (TCA) and Tarlac State University (TSU) to train round 1,240 agrarian reform beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita on modern farming and entrepreneurship.
“Now that these former farmworkers finally own the land they till, they need to learn modern ways of farming. We also want them to learn to become entrepreneurs so that they will be able to manage their farm products efficiently and market them properly,” DAR Regional Director Arnel Dizon said in a press statement.
The partnership, which is under DAR’s Agrarian Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Support Services Program, will have as students those who are members of the 10 farmers’ cooperatives belonging to the 10 barangays of the vast sugarestate.
Under it, TCA and TSU will provide instructors,lecturers and trainers to teach the farmers about modern farming techniques and practices, optimizing crop production, and the use of modern farm equipment. They will likewise invite professionals to enhance their basic knowledge on bookkeeping, cash flows, market surveys,costing and labor, and proper packaging of their products, DAR said.
