Corona: It’s Luisita, Mr. President!

Commentary

Corona: It’s Luisita, Mr. President!
Winston A. Marbella

On the dock for what could be a career-ending impeachment trial in the Senate, Chief Justice Renato Corona gave the public an inside peek into the roots of his conflict with President Aquino -- a unanimous Supreme Court decision (14-0) that gave the sprawling crown jewel of the Cojuangco-Aquino feudal wealth, Hacienda Luisita, back to its tenant-farmers.

Mr. Aquino flatly denies this, but the issue of just compensation for the hacienda owners will still be decided by the Supreme Court even after Corona and other justices are removed from office by impeachment, which the House of Representatives is threatening to do.

Launching a media offensive before the defense takes its turn at the trial this week, Mr. Corona said the landmark Luisita decision, which implemented a constitutional mandate for land reform, was what triggered the President to have him impeached by allies in the House of Representatives.

AT MANILA’S GATES

Lost in the furor over the impeachment trial and Supreme Court decision upholding the right of farmers to own the land they till is the reason why we have agrarian reform at all.

In the turbulent ’50s, the communists were literally knocking at the gates of Manila, threatening to take it over.

The communist insurgency was largely fueled by the feudal land ownership system the American Commonwealth government in the Philippines inherited from over 300 years of Spanish rule.

Seeking to balance the economic and political power of the ilustrados, the Americans supported the rise of the middle class composed mostly of Filipinos with Chinese roots (see Cacique Democracy in the Philippines by Benedict Anderson).

This was how the Cojuangcos of Tarlac came to own the vast Hacienda Luisita estate from its Spanish owners.

CONDITIONAL

President Ramon Magsaysay considered it the centerpiece of his anti-insurgency campaign to remove the mass base of the communists by breaking up the feudal landholdings and giving the land to the farmers.

In 1958, the Cojuangcos were granted a government loan to acquire Hacienda Luisita on condition that the estate be distributed to qualified tenant farmers after 10 years, in 1968.

Barely 11 months into her term in 1986, President Corazon Aquino saw a demonstration of farmers in Malacañang mowed down by government troops, leaving 13 dead. On June 10, 1988 she promulgated the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

On Aug. 23 that year, Hacienda Luisita was incorporated, allowing the distribution of stock certificates among landless farmers instead of land.

It was the first corporation to do so. Many more followed.

BLOODY PAST

On Nov. 16, 2004, a strike at the Hacienda Luisita led to the violent dispersal of protesters by police and military forces, leaving at least seven workers dead. At least seven more were killed in subsequent violent incidents arising from the labor unrest, including an Aglipayan Church priest and a bishop.

In 2005, during the term of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Department of Agrarian Reform revoked the stock distribution option (SDO). The Hacienda went to court. The recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the farmers after decades of delay was the result.

This may have been the easy part of implementation. There is the more difficult part of "just compensation" for the Cojuangcos, which may take years to adjudicate.

‘JUST COMPENSATION’

The amount of compensation will be decided by the Supreme Court, with Corona likely to still be at the helm because he retires in 2018, two years past the term of the President.

In reacting to the court decision, President Aquino said that land reform must seek to achieve two goals -- to "empower the farmers" but also to ensure that landowners are "justly compensated" for giving up their lands.

The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said the court decision was just the first step in realizing true agrarian reform. It said the government must give farmers the needed support and services to assist them in their production and social enterprises. "Without this support, the farmers are always in danger of losing their lands," the CBCP said.

EXODUS

For Virginia Paligutan, 80, the day began at 2 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 24. She was to take public transportation from Hacienda Luisita to Manila to personally hear the expected announcement of the Supreme Court finally granting her and thousands of other farmers title to the land they have tilled for decades.

She stood with hundreds of other farm workers outside the Supreme Court to hear the announcement. She wanted to hear it for her son Valentino, who had been retrenched from Hacienda Luisita following a labor unrest arising from the stock distribution plan proposed in place of land distribution mandated by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of 1988.

Valentino had gone to the hills to join the New People’s Army. Valentino, 52, was killed in a fire fight with government troops in 2005.

‘MY CHILD, WE HAVE WON’

Upon hearing the good news at the Supreme Court, Virginia muttered, "My child, we have won."

"This is not for me," said the grandmother of 13 children, including three of Valentino’s under her care. "I am already old," she told a reporter.

"I did not even own a pot of soil before," said Virginia, as she wept for her son Valentino, who had given up his life for a piece of land.