Written by
Charlie V. Manalo
Saturday, 25 May 2013 08:00 [
tribune.net.ph ]
While the
Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) and its Central Luzon chapter the
Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala) are amenable to
the government’s farm service assistance on the 6,212 Luisita beneficiaries,
the groups rejected the Department of Agrarian Reform’s market dictated block
sugar farming and instead asked DAR Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes to respect
the collective will of the farmer beneficiaries to pursue their own production
endeavor.
According to
UMA chairman Lito Bais, Luisita farmworkers have been waiting for so long for
government subsidies but the DAR should not get it wrong to think that they
will give in to the conditions in return of farm aid.
“We demand
service of any kind free of any conditions and obligations. We know how to make
our farm lands productive; its’ a matter of resources and sheer political
will,” he stressed.
The UMA
leader added the “DAR is in no position to tell what is good for us. In fact if
they have done their work in the first place; land distribution of Hacienda
Luisita has not been at a snail’s pace.
“Indeed we
are entitled for services just like all land reform beneficiaries in the
country but not on DAR’s terms. The farmworkers will not allow DAR to treat
Luisita’s land distribution like a business transaction,” the peasant leader
said.
The Supreme
Court had earlier ordered DAR to implement the distribution of 4,916 hectares
of land controlled by President Aquino’s family for more than five decades.
On February
27, DAR released the list of 6,212 beneficiaries.
UMA slammed
the attempt of DAR, Department of Agriculture and the Sugar Regulatory
Administration, National Dairy Authority, Agricultural Training Institute and
the Land Bank of the Philippines to force a market-driven style program to
camouflage the governments’ non-land transfer scheme under Republic Act 9700,
or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper)
Law.
“The Agrarian
Reform Community Connectivity and Economic Support Services (ARCCESS) was
designed to promote market-oriented scheme like the Stock Distribution Option,
leaseback agreement, contract growing and joint venture; it’s a scheme aim to
frustrate actual and physical land distribution of Hacienda Luisita,” Bais
added
He also said
the farmworkers under Ambala are against block sugar farming because it will
only re-concentrate their farm lands back to the Aquino-Cojuangcos or to some
other interested parties.
“We don’t
want the 4,915 hectares of Luisita farm land be part of the government’s
profiteering racket that will deprive farmer beneficiaries of their right to
decide on their own planting and cultivation method.”
“If they
really want to help; first, they should proceed on the land distribution
without any further delay. Second, they should help the beneficiaries to pursue
the P1.33billion that the HLI owed to the farmworkers. That is the very
concrete way to help us to get social justice and not another scheme that will
make surely get us into a compromise spot,” Bais said.
In its
decision, the high court ordered Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) to pay P1.3
billion ($31.7 million) to the farm workers for the sale of 200 hectares of
land. In 1989, the stock distribution option (SDO) was implemented in the
hacienda and the farm workers, as stockholders, are supposedly entitled to get
their share from the sale of land, among others. Over the years, parcels of
land have been converted and sold, including the 80.51-hectare lot for the
Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) road network but farm workers did not
receive a single centavo.
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