Luisita warns vs DAR plan to distribute land in June

The Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) threatened the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) yesterday with "a flurry of legal suits" should it decide to push through with its plan to distribute an initial 1,781 hectares of the Tarlac sugar estate to farmer-beneficiaries next month.

HLI legal counsel and spokesman Vigor Mendoza said such a move of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman will be met with legal suits since the Supreme Court has yet to decide on their petition questioning the decision of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) revoking the sugar estate’s stock distribution scheme.

Mendoza said the legal suits would practically come "from all sides" with the HLI management insisting that the DAR neither has authority nor legal basis to distribute the land to the farmer-beneficiaries.

In the absence of any Supreme Court decision, Mendoza said the best that the DAR could do is to refrain from making any move that would aggravate the already complicated situation.

"Don’t be too fast," Mendoza told the DAR in a statement. "Prudence is the best option at the moment."

In a press conference, Pangandaman earlier bared plans to distribute an initial 1,781 hectares to qualified sugar farmworkers of Hacienda Luisita next month, in time for the 18th anniversary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Pangandaman was referring to Lot 18 in Barangay Motrico, La Paz town, which is about 556 hectares; Lot 3 in Barangays Asturias, Bantog, Balete, Texas, Mapalacsiao and Cutcut in Tarlac City, 210 hectares; and Lot 25 in Barangays Pasajes, Pando, and Parang in Concepcion town, 1,015 hectares.

A team composed of representatives of DAR, Land Bank of the Philippines, and Department of Agriculture, is to conduct an ocular inspection of Hacienda Luisita, the largest sugar estate in Luzon, for land valuation, a pre-requisite to land distribution.