Luisita exec welcomes DAR probe of stock options

A top official of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), the corporate entity which owns and operates the Hacienda Luisita sugar estate in Tarlac, welcomed the order reportedly issued by Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Morales to reinvestigate the hacienda’s stock distribution option (SDO) scheme which recently has been the object of alleged complaints from some farmworkers.

"This will be an opportunity for us to formally engage the supposed complainants in a proper forum and enlighten the public on the true state of affairs in the hacienda," said HLI corporate legal counsel Fernando Cojuangco.

Cojuangco lamented that Morales has been carping about the allegations in media, without officially notifying HLI of written complaints supposedly lodged in his office.

"It is unfortunate that Secretary Morales, who by virtue of his position should be the one promoting the successful implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), would instead unduly impair, ignore and discourage the beneficial effects of the law by resorting to a politically motivated propaganda effort to create agrarian conflict where there is none," Cojuangco said.

He belied reports of agrarian unrest in Hacienda Luisita, and bewailed alleged attempts to disturb the prevailing industrial peace in the sugar estate just to discredit the family of former President Corazon Aquino.

"Contrary to the allegations of the supposed complainants, HLI has provided its workers with a generous source of living over and above what each individual worker might have earned if he or she were given a piece of land instead," Cojuangco said.

He said HLI has religiously complied with DAR’s reportorial requirements, and that since the start of the SDO implementation in 1989, the hacienda has given its workers a total of P2 billion in salaries, wages and fringe benefits, including hospitalization and medical care, aside from interest-free loans totaling over P200 million.

"Every sugar farmer knows that sugar is a plantation crop, which means that sugar can be grown much more economically and efficiently if operated on a large farm rather than on a one-hectare farm," he said.

He added that this fact has been proven in Tarlac where majority of small farmers are able to yield only 35 to 40 tons per hectare, whereas HLI is able to yield 70 to 80 tons per hectare.

Cojuangco expressed doubts that the so-called "complaining farmers" were bona fide farmer-beneficiaries who, being members of the hacienda’s workers’ union, would know that they need not resort to mass action to air their grievances which can be easily threshed out under the grievance-resolution process of their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the Luisita management.

He cited the case of Francisco Sigua, the workers’ union president who was ambushed after reportedly leading a farmers’ rally last week.

"The truth is that Sigua, who represents the farmworkers in the HLI board of directors, even refused to join the rally because he knew that there are more expedient processes under their CBA to resolve any union grievance," Cojuangco said in a statement.