Luisita farmers ask DAR to grant petition on RCBC land

MANILA, Philippines - Hacienda Luisita farmers yesterday asked the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to grant their petition to include the 500-hectare Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) land for distribution and at the same time revoke all conversion orders that were previously covered by the stock distribution option of Hacienda Luisita Inc.

The farmers led by the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) in a 22-page petition said, “Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) and its successor-in-interests violated the terms and conditions of the conversion order and the rules and regulation on conversions. Second, the land remained agricultural in use and should be placed under the coverage of the agrarian reform program as grounds of the petition.”

The petition was signed by different village leaders in ten barangays that make up Hacienda Luisita and members of the farm workers alliance AMBALA.

“For almost seven years, the said land situated in Barangay Balete has not been subjected to development; it remained idle for a long time and still fit for agricultural purpose. That is why the DAR should make a swift step ordering its inclusion for land reform and eventual distribution.

“HLI and its successor-in-interest clearly failed to comply with their obligations mandated under the conversion order. Specifically, HLI did not pursue the proposed development plan that was indicated in the application for conversion and instead disposed the 500 hectares to other Cojuangco-owned companies and to RCBC. It also failed to implement the development plan within five years starting Aug. 14, 1996, the time when the Order of Conversion was granted by the DAR,” the petition read.

This pertains to the 200-hectare land of Luisita Realty Inc. (LRI) and covered by the Aug. 14, 1996 Conversion Order, as well as the 300 hectares which the Centenary Holdings sold to the Luisita Industrial Park Corp. (LIPCO) and eventually bought by RCBC.

The LRI, Centenary Holdings and LIPCO were owned and operated by the Cojuangcos.

The group pointed out, “In the case of RCBC: Section 2 of Republic Act 8754 or the General Banking Laws of 2000 states that ‘Land acquired by banking institutions should be disposed within five years after its acquisition.’ Since it was idle for almost a decade and is still an agricultural land, it is a highly qualified candidate to be subjected under land reform. DAR should pave the way for its distribution even if it was legally acquired by RCBC.”

“We have already proven its agricultural productivity when we started ‘bungkalan.’ In fact, we already harvested palay and other cash crops since we started cultivating last July 15 and we will continue to expand land cultivation with more or less 100 hectares already cleared and plowed, ready to be planted,” AMBALA said.

For its part, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said, “It is clear that HLI had no intention of developing or converting the 500-hectare land that is subject of the DAR conversion order. For instead of ‘developing’ the same pursuant to their undertaking in the application for conversion, it merely caused them to be transferred to other family-owned corporations of the Cojuangcos, LIPCO, Centenary and LRC.”