By Homer Teodoro
Central Luzon TV and VERA Files
They beat drums made of recycled tin cans making sounds of joy. One even climbed the tractor and declared on top of his voice that they won against the Cojuangcos.
Feliz Nacpil, Jr. a.k.a. “Ka Dec”, chairman of Alyansang Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA), said since Tuesday they waiting for the High Court’s decision. He said they were prepared go to Manila in case the decision and rally in front of the SC if the decision was not favorable to them.
“But now, look at our people. When they heard the good news they were so happy. The peasant farmers won! Now, they are so happy because they can till the land they fought for, the land which the Cojuangcos grabbed from them. It was a long battle,” Nacpil said.
Nacpil called on the Cojuangco family to distribute the land to the rightful beneficiaries as soon as possible. “We are very hopeful that they will respect the SC’s decision. They themselves want to have peace in the Hacienda Luisita. They should abide by the Court’s decision,” he said.
An emotional Josephine Garcia waved the placard that says “Karapatan ng mga magsasaka ipaglaban! (Fight for the rights of farmers.)”
“Ay maraming salamat, na naipaglaban namin ang karapatan sa lupa. Salamat din sa mga media na tumulong sa aming laban. (We are thankful that we fought for our right to this land. We thank media for helping us), ” she said in tears.
Florida Sibayan was dancing all over the place. “Ang laban ng mga ninuno nang mga magulang namin, ang mga magulang ko at magulang namin ay mayroon ng katarungan. Ang dapat manalo sa lupa ay nagwagi na kaya masayang masaya kami.( Our forefathers’ fight finally achieved justice. The ones who should win, won so we are very happy.) ”
Virginia Paligutan said “Napapaiyak na ako ngayon dahil ang anak ko ay isa sa mga nagmalasakit dito. Isa siya sa mga lumaban at namatay para sa lupa kaya ngayon ay nagpapasalamat ako ng maraming marami dahil nanalo siya sa kanyang laban.(I cried because my son was one of those who fought and died for this cause. I’m very thankful because he won.)” Her son Bal Paligutan joined the rebels in the mountains after the so called “Hacienda Luisita Massacre” in 2004. Bal died in an armed encounter.
Even the children joined the jubilation of their parents as they took the flags they used in rallies and played as if they were also a rally.
Gary Gonzales, vice-chairman of AMBALA said they plan to gather all the stock certificates HLI gave them as stock shares and tear them in front of the TV cameras to show their indignation. He said their leaders will meet as soon as possible to propose to the people what they plan to do with the land they fought for. One of the possible options is for AMBALA to manage the land so that it will not fall into the wrong hands or else all that they fought for will be amount to nothing.
(VERA Files is put out by veteran journalists taking a deeper look at current issues. Vera is Latin for “true.”)
Yan, may lupa na sila. Pwede na ibenta saka mag-iiskwater sa Maynila habang naghahanap ng trabaho.
Tama ka tongue…hindi sasablay ang sandok sa palayok!!!
marami na namang nadagdag sa mga gagatasan ng mga pulahang kaliwete.
problema lang, may lupa nga sila wala namang pambili ng gamit sa pagbubukid.
maliwanag na sa kulay ng bandilang ipinakikita’t ipinagmamalaki nila na ang lahat ay red initiated.
mahal ang singil nila diyan!
Arroyo has the last laugh in this one.
PAGBULUSOK
Ni: Arvin U. de la Peña
Kapangyarihan na mataas nakamit
Ginawa ay pang-aabuso sa bayan
Di man lang inisip mga mamamayan
Sariling kapakanan lamang ang nais.
Pamilya at kaalyado ay nabusog
Nagpasarap sa buhay at nagpayaman
Kung sino sa kanya ang bumabatikos
Tinatakot para hindi na umulit.
Halos bawat nagreretirong heneral
Posisyong maganda ang kinalalagyan
Simbahang katoliko ay binibigyan
Upang hindi pagsalitaan ng pangit.
Hainan man para siya mapatalsik
Walang pagkabahalang nararamdaman
Mga kongresistang kampi nariyan lang
Sagana sa bigay na milyong pork barrel.
Mula sa itaas ngayon ay bumagsak
Walang naaawa sa kanyang sinapit
Pagkat siya di dapat na kaawaan
Ang dapat ay makulong sa kasalanan.
posted already in my blog.
Magandang desisyon ang ginawa ng Supreme Court. Kaya naman pala nila na magdesisyon agad bakit ang iba hindi nila madesisyunan. Pinatatagal pa.
Spread the wealth! It is quite obscene for someone to own that much land in a small country like ours. They should have given that to the farmers way back when the govt agreed to sell the land to them.
Eto bang desisyon ng SC ay para sa H. Luisita lang o para sa lahat ng malalaking hacienda? May mga ilan din sa Negros.
“Arroyo has the last laugh in this one.”–johnmarzan
Arroyo in neck-deep trouble, I doubt she can still laugh on this one, :).
I am happy for those who really want these lands. Hindi madali ang magbungkal ng lupa. Maybe what lolo wanted is not what apo likes. Karamihan sa mga lupa na yan ay hindi rin madedevelop. Did I hear that these lands can not be sold within 10 years?
Magantay na lang ang Hacienda Luisita and buy these land back in 10 years…heh,heh,heh.
What’s next on the menu?
After land to the landless, it’s condos to the condoless.
And office space to the ones without office spaces.
At any rate, I wish them luck. After a few years, many will sell or lease their land.. inspite of the 10 year prohibition. There are ways around it.
And some of leaders of these farmers now also want that the lands be titled to a cooperative? I thought it was land for the individuals they were fighting for.
And who will run this cooperative? The leaders? They’re salivating already because there are potential billions available to be managed. Uh oh.. poor farmers. Watch out.
It’s hard to own real estate property here.
If it’s agricultural, you will be CARP-ed. If you have property in the city and it gets squatted on, you get hit with the Lina Law.
Better invest your money in something else.
The Hda. Luisita land is huge. That’s because they are plantation lands. Intended to be run as a plantation for the plantations crop called sugar.
You cannot grow sugarcane on small lots and still be competitive in the world market. It is a crop intended to be grown in large tracts of land that requires huge investments in fertilizer, trucks, railways, sugar mills and so on.
And so the Hda. Luisita lands will no longer be viable for sugar planting. Even if they run it as a cooperative, I don’t think it will survive if it is run by themselves or their present leaders. It should be run by a professional team who knows the business in and out.
But I wish them luck. They will need lots of it.
As for the Cojuangcos and Aquinos or anybody else with huge tracts of land, it is best that they voluntarily offer it for sale to their farm workers. With our laws stacked against plantations, it is better for them to invest their money in something else. But they must get paid for the land at a fair value.
Thare should be a law that forfeits these lands if they are not planted on or utilized.
As a general principle, I agree. Say, 5 years. You pay higher taxes if you don’t utilize the land within 5 years. Or whatever similar succeeding sanctions or penalties.
The problem at present is that even if the land is fully utilized as in the case of these large farms, the trend is to take it away from you and give it to those who have none.
The SC says that the principle is to give control of the.land to the tillers of the land.
Therefore, in the same manner and logic, the government should give control of any business to those who work in it as employees. All corporations are therefore to be turned into cooperatives?
The next question is… If all corporations in the Philippines are to be re-formed into cooperatives, will investors stay? Will we attract all those foreign investments/companies into the country?
This all sounds so implausible. But to test the soundness of certain policies or law, sometimes we have to take it to the extreme logical conclusion. Stretch it’s practicality to the extreme and see how it looks from that perspective.
@Phil Cruz: “They’re salivating already because there are potential billions available to be managed. Uh oh.. poor farmers. Watch out.” … “You cannot grow sugarcane on small lots and still be competitive in the world market. It is a crop intended to be grown in large tracts of land that requires huge investments in fertilizer, trucks, railways, sugar mills and so on.”
Well said.
To me, the Hacienda Luisita issue runs parallel to the recently tentatively agreed NBA-Owners-Players issue (assuming it gets approved by both sides).
While i also have great respect and want the best for our farmers, if their tract of land is indeed small, they would end up with less profitability due to the large opex needed to just run a small tract of land. So it sounds like “cooperative” or union nga. Tapos ano title is now back to a master owner, tama ba?
Its quite ironic how the farmer’s consultants (much like the NBA player’s union) wanted to make the farmers get more share of the profit that they failed to realize they may have made their current situation now risky than profitable.
I’m pretty sure if that was ever to happen, the “elitist” and the Cojuangcos gets blamed again.
Now the owners are also to be blamed. They hired too many farmers who ended up thinking they were owners as well. Kala ng owners kasi cheap labor means less opex than get things automated.
In industrialized nations, the owners themselves are the farmers. With employment at very minimal scale, farming is done via machinery. In fact it give production less opex and more accurate costing. It may come more costlier than having manual labor but it becomes more stable than having too many overhead.
I’m not an advocate of less manual labor. Just that maybe labor need not be always blue collar all the time.
I am also not anti-Union as it does protect employees from scrupulous employers. But it seems to me, unions have always have this sense of demand for entitlement (profit) without the thought having a share of responsibility (opex/cost). What happens when the company does not make a profit that year, do we hear unions saying, we will cut back as well?
Give and take dapat. Always.
You dont have to plant sugarcane. The decision is given to the farmers. They can lease it back to the former owners or to someone else who would offer them more for the land or they can join a cooperative. They dont have to rely on the owner for work.
I don’t see the logic of giving up ones land to the farmers. You saved your hard earned money to buy a land thinking you’ll benefit from it someday. Or the land was an inheritance from your parents which they used their hard earned money to buy, then suddenly, this law tells you to give it up and give to the farmers. Something is very wrong here.
Then there is the Lina (stupid) law. Recently, Quezon City raised it’s tax on realty saying the proceeds will benefit squatters. WTF????
Sorry for my ignorance of these laws but to those who knows why these laws exist, please educate me.
Mike, me too. I don’ t agree with these two laws. This is social justice kuno.
But to me, social justice is being fair to all parties. So if they really want the lands, they should pay the fair market value.. And pay a premium.. Since the landowner was not offering it for sale in the first place.
But this high and mighty SC says….bla..bla..bla..
I’m talking about private lands in general. This excludes those proven to have been ill-gotten, of course.
6000 hectares is almost 1/5 of arable land in C. Luzon! You can still own 24 hectares which is still very big. If you have a wife and 2 kids, you can own 96 hectares. Malaki na yun. Hindi mo na malalakad ang perimeter nun na hindi ka mapapagod.
OT
Hindi lang tayo ang may problema sa mga squatters. Sa UK, isa sa pinakamaunlad na bayan sa buong mundo ay nakakaranas din ng ganoong problema. Mayroon din silang kahintulad na batas natin na Lina (stupid) law.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2049946,00.html
This is why I think it is better for big landowners to offer to voluntarily sell na lang to their farm workers. Sakit lang sa ulo.
And once the union guys start agitating their farm workers, tapos na ang negosyo nila. The farms will turn out just like Luisita. Strikes, unproductive de-motivated workers, sabotage of machineries and equipment, killings, countless trips to the courts….
I think most landowners would be more than willing to offer their lands for sale to their workers if they get a reasonable price for the land.
That’s the quick and simple key to all these.
My mistake. An individual can only own 7 hectares. I dont know how many a corporation can own. I was thinking about the homestead.
It hard to let go of land because you make a lot of money on it. If im not mistaken, agri products are tax free. Lets say you have 1000 hectares and you make 50000/ hectare, thats 50M/ yr.