ANGELES CITY – Much of what will happen to the Hacienda Luisita issue will tell on newly assumed Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno.
This, even as the militant group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) criticized yesterday Sereno’s statement that it was God’s will and not politics that cast her fate as head of the Supreme Court for the next 18 years.
“Let us call a spade a spade. She should with all candor admit it was her close association with Pres. Aquino that gave her that much coveted SC post,” said Pamalakaya in a statement.
Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France belittled Sereno’s promise for reforms. “We don’t trust her. She is a protegee of Pres. Aquino and she carried out what the landed Cojuangco family wants in Hacienda Luisita.”
Thus, how the Supreme Court would deal with the hacienda issue would eventually reflect the independence of Sereno, France stressed.
France recalled that Sereno had once “asserted the Cojuangco sugarestate group to get between P5 billion to P10 billion in compensation for relinquishing control of the 6,453 hectare hacienda to farm worker beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita.”
The hacienda used to be owned by Pres. Aquino’s family until the Supreme Court under ousted Chief Justice Renato Corona, ordered in November last year that the lands be distributed to farmworkers.
“Chief Justice Sereno by political and moral standards is a protegee of Noynoy Aquino and a mercenary of the Cojuangco feudal aristocracy. How can social justice prevail under her reign?
The sum of all our fears is that Sereno’s designation as chief justice might lead to grand reversal of the SC decision on Luisita in whole or in parts or might proceed to a runaway approval of the P 10-billion compensation bonanza asked by HLI on Luisita case,” said the Pamalakaya statement.
France said many sectors have remained skeptical about the independence of Sereno.
“We will not give Chief Justice Sereno the benefit of the doubt. At the start of her career as associate justice we all know and it’s public knowledge that she is Aquino’s main point person in the Supreme Court and she is bound to give her political benefactor Noynoy the fruits of his machination,” the group said.
“If Chief Justice Sereno wants to erase the bad political stigma caused by her decision on Hacienda Luisita, she should recall her P10-billion just compensation package proposal on Hacienda Luisita, pursue the urgent and free land distribution of the sugar estate to farm worker beneficiaries and compel the Cojuangcos to pay farm workers P 1.3 billion representing their 33 percent shares on the sale of Luisita lands to private corporations, including the controversial sale of lands covered by SCTEX,” Pamalakaya added.
