Life once ‘sweeter’ at Hacienda Luisita
By Russell Arador
Inquirer
First Posted 05:45:00 05/04/2007
Filed Under: Agrarian Reform
HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC CITY -- Fernando Salvador was only 12 years old when he started working at the vast sugarcane plantation then owned by the Spanish firm Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, or Tabacalera.
“Life used to be better then,” says Salvador, now 74. There was plenty of work to do.
This continued even after the Spanish owners, fearing a communist Huk uprising, sold the 6,453-hectare hacienda and a sugar mill, Central Azucarera de Tarlac, in 1958 to the Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco) of Jose Cojuangco Sr.
The acquisition of Cojuangco, whose daughter Corazon later became the Philippine president, comprised three municipalities in Tarlac province.
The purchase was made possible through loans from the Government Service Insurance System and the Manufacturer’s Trust of New York, the latter guaranteed by the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Bygone era
Norberto Masanque, 57, and Marcelina de Leon, 74, both old hands at Hacienda Luisita, share Salvador’s recollection of a bygone era.
“In those times, there were a lot of opportunities for work. There was even so much overtime work that we sometimes got fed up working,” Masanque says.
Often, he says, hacienda management would offer Sunday work but workers would refuse. Back then, Luisita workers could afford the luxury of refusing work.
Not any more.
Two years after Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino became the President after the 1986 People Power Revolution, she signed into law a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), calling for the redistribution of private agricultural lands across the nation.
The Cojuangco family, however, held on to its landholding under a stock distribution option allowed under CARP, in which farmers at the hacienda were given shares of stock in the Luisita corporation in lieu of land. The shares made them co-owners of the hacienda, at least on paper.
Retrenchment
On Aug. 30, 2004, about 1,000 Hacienda Luisita workers staged a rally to protest what they described as the arbitrary retrenchment of workers, including United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) president Rene Galang and nine other officers, among many other issues.
On Nov. 16, 2004, seven people were killed when policemen and government soldiers dismantled barricades set up by the protesters.
The conflict reached the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, which subsequently decided to revoke the SDO arrangement and distribute the hacienda to the farmers. The case is now in the Supreme Court.
Masanque recalls that work had started to become scarce shortly after the implementation of the SDO scheme. “Work was divided among us. Sometimes one could work for only three days within a week. I sometimes got work four days a week,” he says.
Toward the 2004 strike, which would paralyze operations not only at the plantation but at the mill as well, workers would get only a day of work a week.
Reducing ‘service stocks’
Masanque says he suspected that management was deliberately cutting workers’ “man-days” -- the number of days that each beneficiary works -- to reduce their “service stocks,” which is computed on the number of days worked.
He says he was able to buy television and stereo sets and had his house built when work was still abundant. Now he could not even have his broken TV repaired.
Aside from diminishing work opportunities, another adverse result of the SDO implementation was the loss of educational and hospitalization benefits that workers used to get, Masanque says.
“Before, we enjoyed a lot of benefits. We did not pay for hospital bills. We do that now,” he says.
Masanque cites as example his confinement at the Far Eastern University Hospital in Metro Manila in 1983.
He says the company paid for his bills amounting to P92,000. “I did not pay, not even a centavo,” he says.
Before, workers could send their children to school for free and could even avail of educational loans for other expenses twice a year, Masanque says. “There was even a free school bus service.”
Salvador says the culprits for the dwindling man-days were the farm machines that gradually took over a number of processes used to be handled by people in a bid to lower the cost of sugar production.
“When the machines came, opportunities for work gradually dwindled,” says Salvador, who, like Masanque and De Leon, managed to build his house when the pasture was greener at the hacienda.
Nostalgic for Ninoy
All three found Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino’s stint as hacienda administrator as most beneficial to Luisita workers.
Such was their esteem for the assassinated opposition leader and husband of Corazon Aquino. They felt that had Ninoy been alive during his wife’s presidency, he would have compelled her to parcel out the hacienda to its farmers.
After all, regardless of the roots of the Luisita workers’ ills, a collective longing for actual land ownership endures, the workers say.
De Leon, who started working as a sugarcane cutter and weeder at the hacienda at 20, adds: “We prefer that the land is distributed because people could till it.”
Life once ‘sweeter’ at Hacienda Luisita - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
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10-29-2009, 05:28 PM #81C.I.A.
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IN THE KNOW
Hacienda Luisita
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:57:00 09/13/2009
Filed Under: Agrarian Reform, Family
MANILA, Philippines—Hacienda Luisita straddles portions of Tarlac City and Concepcion and La Paz towns in the province of Tarlac. It is as large as the cities of Makati (2,986 hectares) and Pasig (3,100 hectares) combined.
Originally part of the landholdings of the Compania General Tabacos de Filipinas (or Tabacalera), it was named after the wife of Don Antonio Lopez, who headed Tabacalera when it acquired the estate in 1882.
The Huk rebellion in the 1950s led the Spanish owners of Tabacalera to sell Hacienda Luisita and the sugar mill Central Azucarera de Tarlac.
In 1958, the Cojuangcos acquired the sugar mill and the estate through a loan from the Government Service Insurance System and a dollar loan from the Manufacturer’s Trust of New York, which was guaranteed by the Central Bank of the Philippines.
The estate is now owned and managed by Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), which was incorporated on Aug. 23, 1988.
In that year, nearly 5,000 of the 6,000 hectares of the estate were placed under a stock distribution agreement between the landowners and the farm workers.
The stock distribution option (SDO) is a scheme under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which was first implemented during the administration of President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.
In November 2004, a number of sugar mill workers were killed and dozens of others were wounded when police and military forces dismantled barricades set up by the striking workers in the estate. (The workers claimed that 14 from among their ranks were killed, but the National Bureau of Investigation pegged the number at seven.)
In 2005, the Department of Agrarian Reform canceled the SDO on grounds that it had failed to improve the lives of more than 5,000 farmer beneficiaries.
In May 2006, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council rejected the HLI motion to reconsider the revocation of the SDO.
But the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order to the estate owners, which had the effect of blocking the revocation of the SDO. Inquirer Research
Hacienda Luisita - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos
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10-29-2009, 05:31 PM #83C.I.A.
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Noynoy plan to give up Hacienda Luisita hailed
By KRIS BAYOS
September 13, 2009, 5:43pm
The plan of Senator Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III to convince his family to relinquish control over the 6,453-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac is “a step to the right direction”, and if the Cojuangco-Aquino clan will support him, more so will the Liberal Party, a party official said.
Former Education Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, the party’s campaign manager, said Sunday that Aquino’s bold statement Saturday during his visit to a squatters’ colony in Quezon City is a positive development that will address public qualms about his fairness and independence.
Earlier, a group advocating farmers’ rights dared the only son of former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino and martyred Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. to scrap the October 30 ultimatum set by his family for some 500 families in Hacienda Luisita to leave the vast sugar plantation.
Members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno challenged the senator to prove his promise of a “working democracy” by “giving land to those who till it” and “ordering the military to stop harassing the farmers.”
“This is a positive development that paves the way to resolve certain controversial issues being thrown against Senator Aquino. It is certainly a step in the right direction that is still subject to the approval of his family.
“If the family rallies behind his stand, more so will his party mates,” Abad told the Manila Bulletin.
On Saturday, Aquino said he would prefer it if his family will give up ownership of Hacienda Luisita after incurring debts due to major labor disputes with protesting farmers. He, however, owns only a 1/32 share in the property, whose remaining incorporators include the siblings of his late mother.
Aquino’s maternal uncle, former Tarlac Rep. Jose “Peping" Cojuangco, Jr. was mum when asked to react on his nephew’s intention of giving up his rights over the property.
“That’s his opinion eh. Hindi ko alam kung ano ang ibig niyang sabihin.”
Abad said Aquino’s stand has all the more earned him the respect of various civil society groups and peoples’ organizations outside the Liberal Party that are campaigning for him in the community level nationwide.
“The increasing number of people campaigning for Noynoy is a good development. As Senator Aquino said, he wanted the people to mobilize the campaign for him. He wanted a non-traditional campaign where the party is only one of the players in a group composed of urban poor groups, religious organizations, and supporters working in an unconventional, decentralized and non-hierarchical system,” he said.
But Abad said that the “people campaign” will only go full throttle after the Senator Manuel “Mar” Roxas II finally decides to be Aquino’s running mate.
“As soon as we settle the president-vice president tandem, the filling up of the senatorial lineup down to the local levels will follow. Only then can we mobilize the campaign,” he said.
Roxas, who earlier sacrificed his presidential ambition in favor of Aquino, is a shoo-in for vice president in the party’s ticket. He, however, declined to accept the invitation on the same day that Aquino announced his presidential bid so as not to steal the limelight from Aquino.
“Senator Roxas should be the logical choice for Senator Aquino’s running mate after all the sacrifices he had made. Furthermore, the choice of a running mate is personal. Both of them should be able to think the same way and possess the same values.
“That kind of relationship we have already observed from their long years of friendship,” Abad added.
As for a possible coalition with other opposition parties, Abad said that “although there are no talks yet, our lines of communication are always open.”
Noynoy plan to give up Hacienda Luisita hailed | Manila Bulletin
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10-29-2009, 06:08 PM #84Senior Member
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Originally Posted by vahnhelsing
pasagdi lang bro.. much better magdebate mo sa unsa gyud unod ani nga thread....
as for me, mik... naay point regarding atong imong question nga if naay yuta willing ba ka mohatag...
bro naa man koy mga lote ug mga saop sad pero dili siniweldohan kay tunga or tino man sa abot.. duha ila isa akoa... niabot ang time niadto nig dar and isa sa mga saop kay lagi gusto siya nag makabahin sa yuta... sa akong hunahuna, wala sila malipong
akoy nagbuhis, nya gipatunyangan sila unsay ila itanom ug suportaan pa usahay sa abuno ug binhi nya mag ingon ani in the end, gi ingnan ra sila sa dar nga settle it with the owner kay gawas nga bag.o pa sila nitikad kay la paman kaabot 5 years ako pa jud nagsustento sa galastohon sa eskwela sa anak...sahay, mas abusado pa noon ni sila sa nanag.iya... sayon ra kaayo sulti nga bahinan, pero ug naa mo sa sitwasyon ambot lang kaha ug unsay inyo buhaton....
yes agree ko ani nga comment...even ako naa ko basakan ug kalubihan sa bohol nga gi pamana sa ako amahan pero ako gipa tamnan sa amo mga saop ky wala ko time sa pag pananaom ky dia lagi ko nga negusyo sa cebu..pero suportado naku ang mga kinahanglan sa ako mga saop..gikan sa pasi, abuno,ug uban pa..pero dili mahitabo nga ihatag naku ang yuta nga gi haguan sa ako mga ginikanan did2 nila, gi pa puyo ra naku ug gi sagup gipa tanaom sa amo kaugalingon nga yuta para naa sad sila abot, pero nungka nga ma ila ang yuta...kung gusto sila maka yuta maniguro cla dili nga makuntino cla sa pag uma..kung dili mo upgrad para maka palit cla ug ilang kaugalingon nga yuta para dili na cal mag pa saop..
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10-29-2009, 06:30 PM #85C.I.A.
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The Aquinos only owned 1/32 share of Hacienda Luisita. Originally Posted by joremz
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10-29-2009, 06:33 PM #86C.I.A.
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Nahulhugan man gud ang farmers sa Hacienda Luisita sa mga KOMUNISTA like Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela. Originally Posted by mikhail81
Basta naa ning mga grupoha, gubot pirmi. Kay mao may ila gusto mag kagubot, para ma gyera den mag establish ug Communist State nga walay Dios, walay Ginoo.
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10-29-2009, 06:37 PM #87C.I.A.
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Attorney, ayaw na lang na tumpangi. Wa man kay makuha aning klase nga panghuna huna. Originally Posted by mikhail81
Di man diay gihapon nimo ihatag imong yuta. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I understand your reaction. Nabitik lang ka. Defeat in an argument is hard to swallow.
Sige lang, bai. Pwede man ta magsabot na daog ka bisan dili. Ok? Hahaha.
Naa ra na nimo kung dili ka mutuo sa among Code of Professional Responsibility. ma-OT na man gud ta kung ato nang storyahan, noh? Hahahaha.
Now going back to the Hacienda Luisita Farmers. Kung naa'y hinungdan ngano ilang kahimtang ingon ani karon, sila ra'y mabasol. Mga abusado. Pasagdi na lang na sila nga mag mika'.
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10-29-2009, 06:46 PM #88C.I.A.
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1/32 kay noynoy lang na share... hindi kasama yung kila kris... Originally Posted by surikbots
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10-29-2009, 06:47 PM #89Banned User
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^@surikbots, can't say that they're hulhugan sa mga militante... Isn't Rep. Honteviros one of Noynoy's senatorial candidates?!
By the way, militants are not all into communism... Some members, maybe. Pero dili tanan.
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10-29-2009, 06:49 PM #90C.I.A.
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i think naa right ang mga tag-hacienda luiscita to ask what is mandated by the law... and remember the massacre during the aquino admin sa mga farmers... Originally Posted by surikbots
they just want what is rightful theirs.. kahibaw mo unsa kadaku ang hacienda luisita? pila kabarnagay ang sulod ana...
im no communist... but hacienda are remnant of our feudal past na dpat siguro kahit papaano ay kailangn tangalin sa pilipinas...
imagine nyo ganu kalaki yun at 32 katao lang nag nagmamay-ari...
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