Sugar farmers file petitions for cancellation of stock options

BAGO CITY, Negros Occidental — About 289 agrarian reform beneficiaries in six sugar landholdings in the province are seeking cancellation of Stock Distribution Option (SDO) agreement, citing alleged non-compliance and violations of the agreement by the management.

Provincial Agrarian Reform officer Manuel Velasco yesterday received the petitions of farm workers from the Arsenio Al Acuña Agricultural Corp., Archie Fishponds Inc., Elenita Agricultural Development Corp., all in Cadiz City; Maria Clara Marine Ventures in Bago and Palma Kabankalan Agricultural Corp. in Ilog town.

Sixty-three agrarian reform beneficiaries from SVJ Farms in Concepcion, Talisay City also refiled their petition for SDO cancellation in compliance with the DAR Administrative Order 1 which stipulates the new guidelines for SDO implementation.

The filing of the petition was witnessed by Basilio Propango, farmer representative to the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), which said that the farmers have grounds to call for the cancellation of the SDOs.

Also pending before PARC is a similar petition filed by the Negros Industrial By-Products and Processing Inc. in Barangay Nagasi, La Carlota City, bringing to seven the total petitions filed.

Also expected to follow suit are workers from Tabigue Marine Ventures Inc. in E.B. Magalona, Ledesma Hermanos Agricultural Corp. in San Carlos City and Wuthrich Hermanos Inc. in Calatrava town.

The SDO is a scheme provided under Republic Act 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law which gives corporate farms the right to sell to qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries a portion of the capital stocks of the company. It works on the assumption that maintaining the land intact and unfragmented will be more economically feasible.

There are 13 corporations nationwide that are implementing such scheme — 10 in Negros Occidental, one each in Davao, Iloilo and Tarlac. The SDO of the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac was recently cancelled also by PARC.

Of the 10 farm estates in the province with SDOs, six are owned by sugar planter Arsenio Al Acuña, father-in-law of former Finance Secretary Isidro Camacho.

Among the violations cited by the farmers in their respective petitions include the alleged non-distribution of dividends, share in earnings and failure to provide basic amenities such as water, electricity and housing since they signed the memorandum of agreement with the management.

One of the leaders claimed that when they signed the MOA they were under the impression that such scheme will be favorable to the farm workers.

It would have been the case if only the respective management of these corporations complied with the terms and conditions stated in the agreement, he added.

A study conducted by the Philippine Ecumenical Action for Community Empowerment (PEACE) Foundation Inc. penned by its land tenure improvement coordinator Danilo Carranza indicated that the Arsenio Al Acuña Agricultural Corp. is a merger of six corporations of the Acuña Family with total area coverage of 560 hectares and 565 beneficiaries.

The SDO applications were approved by PARC in 1991.

Meanwhile, provincial board member Edgardo Acuña, managing director of the corporation, denied the claims of the petitioners, saying that the farms are "practically run by the farm workers."

He also said that contrary to the claims of the petitioners, they do not have representatives in the corporation’s board. Farmer Juanito Elinon is, in fact, sitting in the board as their representative.

Acuña also hit the PEACE Foundation, which he accused of trespassing on their property and instigating the farmers in filing the petitions. He said they are mulling charges against the foundation.

Carranza, on the other hand, said that the statements of Acuña only proved that his family do not consider the farmers as co-owners of the corporation. It was the farmers who allowed the foundation to conduct the study on the SDO implementation in the Acuña farms, he said.

Carranza added that the Luisita case has inspired farm workers, who felt they are disadvantaged, to seek cancellation of the SDOs.

He stressed that the study was conducted to determine whether the experience of Luisita is merely an aberration and whether the SDO has been used as a convenient excuse by big corporate farms to escape land distribution.