Luisita counsel questions DAR prober’s authority

TARLAC CITY – Former presidential legal counsel Adolfo Azcuna, who is now acting as lawyer for Hacienda Luisita, has questioned the authority of the special concerns staff director of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to investigate the stock distribution scheme at the sugar estate which the family of former President Corazon Aquino owns.

Azcuna, in a letter to Deinrado Simon Dimalibot, chief of DAR’s special concerns staff, also questioned the supposed complaint against the Luisita management which Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Morales claimed was signed by about 400 farmworkers of the sugar estate.

Azcuna said the Luisita management has yet to formally receive a copy of the said complaint.

But in a reply to Azcuna, Dimalibot said his office has already sent copies of the farmworkers’ petition by registered mail and has also transmitted it by fax.

Azcuna also insisted that Hacienda Luisita Inc., the firm jointly owned by Mrs. Aquino’s family and over 3,000 farmworkers, has not yet received a copy of Morales’ reported special order for an inquiry into the sugar estate’s stock distribution option (SDO) under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Azcuna said, "We will raise the question of jurisdiction at the proper forum if and when the DAR can formally furnish the company a copy of the alleged (complaint and Morales’ order)."

He accused Morales of having demonstrated his bias against Hacienda Luisita, by prejudging the case in television interviews and "(pronouncing) Hacienda Luisita guilty of the charges that he has yet to investigate."

"This is a patent violation of the very due process that Secretary Morales claims to be affording Hacienda Luisita," he said.

Azcuna said the sugar estate’s management will not file any official answer with the DAR, but will prove "at the proper forum" that it has complied with the memorandum of agreement on the stock arrangement, as shown in the hacienda’s annual reports.

Azcuna said the issues against Hacienda Luisita which Morales has raised are best addressed and resolved through the existing grievance procedure the sugar estate has with its stockholders – farmworker-beneficiaries and their union.

"Hacienda Luisita will be addressing the matters allegedly raised, but only in and through appropriate procedures," he said.

Former Tarlac Rep. Jose "Peping" Cojuangco Jr., Mrs. Aquino’s younger brother, has branded Morales’ order against Hacienda Luisita as "plain harassment," as it was issued shortly after Mrs. Aquino launched here the nationwide "prayer" for President Estrada’s resignation.

It was also Peping Cojuangco who helped Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson expose President Estrada’s alleged multimillion-peso take from illegal gambling.