The never-ending saga of Hacienda Luisita

During the tumult of 1984, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.’s widow, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, rose to the occasion and emerged as the anointed leader of a peaceful revolution that would topple the despotic Marcos regime. Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s dictator for almost twenty years, fled to Hawaii after his downfall where he eventually died in exile. Cory Aquino became the reluctant president who would restore the democratic institutions which were destroyed by the strongman Marcos.

Twenty-eight years later to 2012, Cory Aquino’s son, now President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is dangerously pushing the country to the cusp of yet another upheaval. But this time, there would be no deliverance from an oppressive regime where his mother Cory was the symbolic leader of the first EDSA People Power Revolution. Instead, Noynoy Aquino could be the one to blame for starting an agrarian revolt right in his own family’s backyard, an uprising that could virtually spread throughout the country.

An unclassified but sensitive US diplomatic cable published by anti-secrecy group Wikileaks has said that the implications of the Hacienda Luisita case to the landholdings of other wealthy families in the Philippines who have avoided land reform would be far ranging and would have a deep social impact.

Peasant revolution under Noynoy Aquino? Photo courtesy of Michael Wailes.

After the Supreme Court made its decision last November 22, 2011, to redistribute the lands of Hacienda Luisita to its farm workers in accordance with the terms and conditions of the loan that enabled the Cojuangco family to purchase the Hacienda in 1957, Noynoy Aquino’s spokesperson assured that there was no reason why Hacienda Luisita would not comply with the court’s ruling if it became final and executory. On December 12, 2011, the management of Hacienda Luisita filed a motion for reconsideration before the Supreme Court appealing its decision ordering the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to its farm workers, yet ensuring another chapter in the enduring saga of Hacienda Luisita and the continuing doggedness of the Cojuangco family to hold on to their last vestige of feudal possession.

Through various legal manoeuvres, Hacienda Luisita has avoided compliance with the original condition of their loan in 1957 to transfer ownership to the farmers 10 years after the loan matured in 1967. When Cory Aquino assumed the presidency in 1986, she exempted Hacienda Luisita from the government’s land reform program she herself initiated. Three more presidents came to power but Hacienda Luisita remained in the hands of the Cojuangco family, which includes the late president Cory Aquino and her son, the current president.

In July 2011, after a series of motions for reconsideration, including a restraining order to stay the Supreme Court’s decision scrapping the stock distribution option (SDO) proposed by the management of Hacienda Luisita, the Supreme Court revoked the SDO but allowed individual farmers to choose between owning the land or remaining as a stockholder of the Hacienda. The government appealed the Court’s ruling and asked the high court for the full distribution of the land to the farmer beneficiaries, which would lead to the November 22nd ruling in favour of the farmers.

Hacienda Luisita farmers' misery and the SDO. Photo courtesy of Jes Aznar/Bulatlat.
Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebetyUHC9hE to view "Sa Ngalan ng
Tubo: A Documentary on Hacienda Luisita, Parts 1-4."

It would now appear that the Supreme Court decision to redistribute the lands would never be final and executory. The new motion for reconsideration by the management of Hacienda Luisita has reassured that the issue would never die unless the Supreme Court decision is reversed or Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona is impeached, whichever comes first.

On close examination, the Supreme Court decision of November 22nd is in itself flawed and self-defeating. In ruling that the Hacienda lands be distributed to its farm workers, the high court also ordered that owners of the Hacienda be paid just compensation to be calculated from November 21, 1989, the date the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) revoked the stock distribution plan of Hacienda Luisita. The Department of Agrarian Reform and the Land Bank of the Philippines were ordered to determine the compensation due to Hacienda Luisita management.

At issue before the Supreme Court then was who had control over agricultural lands if the stock distribution plan of Hacienda Luisita were to be operational. The court found that the farmers would never gain control of the lands if they remained as stockholders because the management of Hacienda Luisita would always have the greater proportion of shareholdings. Thus, to place control in the hands of the farmers, the lands should be distributed to the farmers instead of allowing them to remain as stockholders in a minority position.

Having said that, the issue of ownership and control over the lands has been settled in favour of the farmers. Why then should Hacienda Luisita management be compensated? They have never been the rightful and legal owners of the lands. The fact is the management of Hacienda Luisita has benefited from these lands since 1957 and from the sale and conversion of some of the lands which they never owned. It is therefore ludicrous to order the farmers who are now the legitimate owners of the lands to pay the management of Hacienda Luisita. The Cojuangco family never owned the lands in the first place, and if they were, their ownership would be limited to 10 years from the time they obtained the lands in 1957 through a government loan. In failing to transfer the lands to the farmers in 1967 and continuing to benefit from the use of the lands up to the present time, the Cojuangcos have no legal and moral obligation to demand compensation. By right, the farmers should be asking for recompense from the Cojuangcos instead.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is trying to implement compensation for Hacienda Luisita under the land reform law which arguably does not cover the lands of the Hacienda. Even if Hacienda Luisita should now be embraced by the comprehensive agrarian reform law, the DAR should take into account that the Cojuangcos have been well compensated over the years for the use of lands they never owned.

Hacienda Luisita implemented its stock distribution option when Cory Aquino was president and as a way of evading land distribution under comprehensive land reform law. When PARC revoked the SDO, the Cojuangco-Aquino family went to the Supreme Court and filed a petition for a temporary restraining order. This temporary order lasted for six years until the Supreme Court’s decision of November 22.

The DAR is relying on a lame and absurd policy that it does not distribute lands for free, that beneficiaries ought to pay. Ownership of the lands has now been settled. Hacienda Luisita is simply being transferred to its rightful owners, not under land reform but under the original condition of the loan that enabled the Cojuangcos to use the lands for ten years and more because of the family’s political influence and economic clout.

Now that the DAR and the farmers are at odds on the issue of compensation, this would probably put the burden on the Supreme Court again to reconsider its decision or clarify the matter of compensation. Either way, the case enters a stage of limbo where it may not be settled beyond the years remaining in the Aquino presidency just as the restraining order took a toll of six long years, despite being temporary in nature.

Or the justices of the Supreme Court, being chastened by the ongoing impeachment proceeding before the Senate and fearful of their own job security, may decide to reverse their decision. Naturally, the farmers will request the high court to reconsider. If they win again, then its Hacienda Luisita’s turn to ask for reconsideration. So it goes on and on. It has become an endless and ridiculous cycle where no acceptable solution seems possible. All along the general idea is that the Supreme Court has the last and final say on the matter. But simply not in the case of Hacienda Luisita where a sitting president and a powerfully entrenched political family are involved in threatening to destroy the entire judicial system.

Or, the farmers might take the matter into their own hands, which is not highly improbable because the government’s comprehensive land reform program has become an abject failure. With recent events unfolding, there seems to be no other viable alternative.

Read between the lines

There are those who blame the laziness and weakness of the masses as one reason why we have so many demagogues in our midst. They say people relish a firm leader, a benevolent dictator. The popular belief is that the iron resolve of such type of leader would help create a greater and better society, or on the other hand, that it would help protect its demise.

This is not only without basis in fact or history but also untrue. When a cabal controls the media and has the backing of the economic elite, it is easier to twist popular support in their favour. The poor masses, bereft of economic power and politically marginalized, could undoubtedly fall for deceit and promises of a better tomorrow.

That’s how Germany fell for Hitler, or Chile and Argentina for Pinochet and Peron. Ferdinand Marcos used his mastery of guile and glib to subdue an entire nation into submission to his goals of a “New Society.”

Is Philippine President Benigno Aquino III under siege? Photo courtesy of Photo
 of the Week (IRRI). Please click link below to view interview with Butuan Bishop
 Juan de Dios Pueblos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU1GEXNzKSE

According to a contemporary Filipino historian, President Noynoy Aquino’s “daang matuwid” (straight path) could very well be his generation’s battle cry for social change as in the old “Bagong Lipunan” (New Society) of the Marcos era. The comparison may sound ominous but could bear some kernel of truth.

The recent state-of-the-nation address by President Aquino demonstrates how eloquent speech can mask the hollowness of his accomplishments after a year in office. This is, by the way, the hallmark of a demagogue. If he continues this way in addressing or leading the Filipino people, Noynoy Aquino might be on the straight path toward building his vision of society based on his moral values, without delivering the economic and social benefits of his so-called agenda for change.

But Noynoy Aquino should be very afraid of the masses when they finally get angry and fed up with false promises and lofty but empty rhetoric. It wasn’t that long ago when the EDSA People Power Revolution helped his mother topple the despotic Marcos regime. The autumn revolution in the streets of Eastern Europe brought down the powerful Soviet Union and its satellite block. The same phenomenon is happening right now in the Arab Spring where leaders like Egypt’s strongman Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were deposed after long years of dictatorship, all because of the intense civil resistance of the masses. Perhaps Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad are the next ones to fall.

One thing is certain. History has shown that the masses are not forever asleep.

Only last July 3, Colonel Generoso Mariano, the deputy commander of the Philippines Naval Reserve Command, published a video on Facebook and YouTube calling for the overthrow of the government of President Benigno Aquino III. In an overt defiance of his Commander-in-Chief, Mariano said that the “Aquino government is not doing anything to keep poor people from going hungry and dying.”

A contingent of Philippine marines marching at the navy headquarters in Manila.
Photo courtesy of Agence France-Presse. Please click link below to view video of  
Col. Generoso V. Mariano calling for the ouster of President Noynoy Aquino:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5zOWrWDIDg

According to Mariano, when the government has no intention to save the plight of the greater majority of the people from their suffering, “it is the right of every Filipino, including soldiers, to replace the government.”

Brave and daring words from one of Noynoy Aquino’s foot soldiers. President Aquino should not forget that his own mother’s term as president of the country was beset by a series of failed military coups. Col. Mariano himself was involved in those coups and also imprisoned for his participation.

This was not the first time a call has been made for Aquino’s ouster.

Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos also made a similar call during a radio interview where he asked President Aquino to step down because he is “not worthy” to lead the country. “Aquino does not plan…he does not make his own decisions and just lets his friends decide on how to run the government,” the prelate added.

The bishop also revealed during the interview that there are similar groups preparing to depose Aquino from Malacanang because they believe that Aquino was not doing his job as president. There were reports that the Solidarity for Sovereignty (S4) had also been active in trying to unseat Aquino, the same group that had been involved in similar efforts to oust former Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo.

What is the Aquino government’s reaction to all these campaigns to apparently destabilize his government?

Col. Mariano was immediately confined to military quarters and a formal investigation was ordered that could lead to a court martial. The Aquino administration dismissed Mariano’s allegations in his video and claimed that the marine officer used to work closely with former President Gloria Arroyo, who is now facing several graft and corruption charges.

Butuan Bishop de Dios was similarly discredited by the Noynoy Aquino’s inner circle as a disgruntled former ally of then President Arroyo and was one of the recipients in the Pajero scandal where church officials were alleged to have received vehicles from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) for their own personal use.

It appears that the present dispensation under Noynoy Aquino has found the magical formula to stem criticism of the government and efforts by disgruntled members of the military to launch a counterproductive coup. Simply put the blame on the previous administration for its own shortcomings and failures. After all, it is the past government that is on trial for massive graft and corruption. By exposing critics or would-be putsch conspirators as being tainted and drenched in the past government’s scandalous record of graft and corruption, Aquino and his allies are now able to quickly dispatch any criticism of government as being motivated by an axe to grind or merely sour grapes.

This cavalier attitude of the government could have serious consequences. Criticisms from now on would just be ignored. What if there was a strain of truth in this jeremiad against the government? This is sounding more and more like a government that is incapable of making mistakes, or a government that does not want to be criticized. When a government starts to think this way, its pushes itself toward the dangerous precipice of complacency—then totalitarianism becomes a temptation, when everything seems perfect for a leader to rule by decree and iron hand.

Just listen or read between the lines these moral exhortations from the august lips of President Aquino in his state of the nation address.

“And to those who may resist the change we are trying to bring about, this I say to you: I know what I must do, and my personal interests are nothing when compared to the interests of the nation. There are many of us who want what is right for this country; and there are more of us than you. To those of you who would turn back the tide of reform: you will not succeed.”

Words from someone imbued with a messianic complex. Clearly a man set out on a mission to manipulate the public’s passion to gain allegiance and stay in power.

Let it be told: Self-righteous sermons that stir popular passions and prejudices are not a miracle drug that can transform society and deliver our people from the pangs of poverty and injustice. Only a demagogic leader believes this is possible.