“Hindi dapat i-angkla ni Pangulong Aquino ang kanyang posisyon sa usapin ng Hacienda Luisita sa kung siya ay may shares pa dito o wala. Paulit-ulit niyang sinasabi tuwing umiinit ang isyu ng HLI [Hacienda Luisita Inc.] na hindi na siya shareholder nito. Dapat paalalahanan si Pangulong Aquino na ang usapin ng Hacienda Luisita ay usapin ng hustisya para sa libo-libong magsasakang ilang dekada nang inaapi. Bilang Pangulo, dapat siyang pumusisyon dahil habang nananatili siyang tahimik sa usapin ng Hacienda Luisita, pinapanatili niya ang kahirapan at kagutuman ng mga magsasakang siyang nagbubungkal ng lupa,” said Gabriela Party-list Rep. Emerenciana de Jesus.
De Jesus issued the statement even as she called on Mr. Aquino to actively pave the way for the distribution of the Hacienda Luisita land to the farmers.
“I would like to remind the President that there already was a 2005 Presidential Agrarian Reform Council [PARC] decision that favored the peasants prior to this recent Supreme Court ruling. A dissenting opinion penned by one of the Supreme Court justices called this majority ruling as a legal and operational aberration. I see it as nothing less than a judicial abomination,” said de Jesus.
The legislator said for as long as Mr. Aquino does not lift a finger on the issue in favor of the farmers, “he serves as a feudal icon to other hacienda owners who continue to resist agrarian reform and perpetuate social injustice.”
De Jesus also challenged Mr. Aquino to certify as urgent House Bill 374, or the genuine agrarian reform bill, which she said “will resolve the HLI and other hacienda issues definitively.”
Relatedly, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), led by Anakpawis Party-list Rep. Rafael Mariano, said Mr. Aquino’s position on the Supreme Court decision ordering the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to conduct a referendum in Hacienda Luiusita, is now out in the open and that is “to abide with the Supreme Court order to conduct a referendum in Hacienda Luisita.”
It issued the statement after Deputy Presidential Spokesman Abigail Valte on Monday said: “The position of the President here is that he is after the good of the greater number of the farmer-beneficiaries, on what would be best. This is precisely the position that has been taken by the Office of the Solicitor General and DAR.”
“Reading between the lines of Valte’s statement, it is the position of the President, a member of the Cojuangco clan, to conduct a referendum,” said KMP secretary-general Danilo Ramos.
“What does ‘greater number of beneficiaries’ and ‘what would be best’ mean? It means dividing the ranks of the farmworkers and let them choose between stocks and land. It is exactly along the line of the Supreme Court’s pro-Cojuangco ruling,” he added.
Ramos said Valte’s statement is both deceiving and revealing the true position of the President.
