Luisita farmers ask SC to start land distribution

MANILA, Philippines - A group of farm workers of the Cojuangco-Aquino- controlled Hacienda Luisita asked the Supreme Court (SC) yesterday to execute its decision ordering the distribution of the 4,915.75-hectare sugar estate in Tarlac to the beneficiaries.

In their motion for clarification and partial reconsideration, the farm workers said Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) had not contested the order for land distribution and only raised issues on just compensation and stock distribution option.

“Apropos of the foregoing disquisition, the matter with respect to the placement or acquisition of the subject land under the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) through the compulsory or mandated land acquisition scheme is no longer a bone of contention so to say,” read the motion.

“Absent any question about the acquisition and redistribution of the land under the CARP, the matter is therefore deemed resolved and it can now be considered executory.”

Seventeen farm workers signed the motion, which was filed in the absence of a lawyer.

A bigger group of farm workers belonging to the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala) has been regularly holding a rally in front of the SC to call for the dismissal of HLI’s appeal.

The SC had recalled and set aside the option granted to farm workers to remain as stockholders of HLI in a decision in July last year.

The justices had unanimously agreed that the contested land should be distributed to the original 6,296 farm workers pursuant to an order of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) in December 2005.

The SC also directed HLI to pay the original farm workers more than P1.33 billion the firm earned from the sale of 500 hectares of the estate.

On appeal, HLI sought clarification on the amount to be paid to the farmers and asked the SC to return to the original farm workers the individual option to choose whether they want to remain stockholders of HLI or lift the 10-year prohibition on the sale of the awarded lands.

Through lawyer Maria Estela Ares, HLI said the reckoning period for the computation of just compensation on the agricultural lands should be at the time of the taking or at least at the issuance of the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR) notice of coverage on Jan. 2, 2006 pursuant to PARC’s resolution recalling the approval of the SDP.

Alternatively, they asked the SC to leave it up to the Land Bank and the DAR the determination of the reckoning period, which is necessary in fixing just compensation.

The DAR, through Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, has yet to file its comment.