?PLEASE DON?T ask me to defend Hacienda Luisita,? was the late President Cory Aquino?s tart retort in an interview with her shortly after she assumed office. At that time, the ?Stock Distribution Option? or SDO had just become the most controversial provision of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Critics alleged the alternative of distributing stocks of ownership in the company instead of distributing land in a plantation was created precisely to benefit the President?s family which owned Hacienda Luisita.

Actually, there was a point to President Cory?s assertion. Hacienda Luisita and the SDO had enough defenders, and anything she said would have been construed as self-interest and interference. Her son P-Noy faces the same situation today. There are those clamoring for him to get involved, to take sides and to live up to his campaign promise to distribute the hacienda?s lands. Some will not be completely happy unless he actually starts handing out land titles to the more than 10,000 farm workers in Luisita.

But what if this isn?t what the farm workers truly want? Politically, overriding the concerns and preferences of the other Cojuangco family members who own shares in the hacienda and the sugar mill would be the most convenient for the President. The hacienda, after all, has been a political and PR problem for the Cojuangcos for close to 30 years, a symbol of their feudal roots.

And yet to hear Fernando Cojuangco, a cousin of P-Noy who manages Luisita, and other members of the family say it, the reason they don?t just dismantle the plantation and turn the property over to the Department of Agrarian Reform for distribution is that it will not solve the basic problems confronting the people who depend on Luisita for a living.

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WINDSOR Andaya and Jose Julio Zuñiga represent the supervisory group of Hacienda Luisita Inc. in the case filed by, among others, the Hacienda Luisita management and the farm workers in the case filed before the Supreme Court, questioning the legality of the DAR order rescinding the SDO and ordering the distribution of land parcels.

Our media group had dinner with them and representatives of Hacienda Luisita the night before they were to appear at the Supreme Court for oral arguments in which they were to present their case before the justices.

Both men were born into families working the sugar fields of Luisita, but they managed to earn degrees in agriculture which may have factored in their rise to supervisory rank. Zuñiga is strongly in favor of the SDO, explaining that he sees owning shares in the hacienda as a form of investment. ?The value of our shares will surely rise once we get over the legal problems,? he declares. ?If we are able to get investors to set up factories inside the hacienda, then we will not only be able to provide jobs for our people, but we will also see the value of our shares rise.?

The land in three barangays inside Luisita was distributed some years ago to some of the workers, recall both Andaya and Zuñiga, but unable to afford the inputs necessary to turn the land into productive farms, most chose to sell their property and move away. ?And now only a few families have ended up owning the land in those barangays,? observes Zuñiga.

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WHAT befuddles both men, they say, is how the situation in Hacienda Luisita is being painted as a ?social justice? issue when to the workers themselves what matters more is jobs and income.

This may be the reason the majority of them, in a referendum conducted recently, opted for stock distribution over owning parcels of land. Referring to militant leaders who had some years ago talked a workers? group into calling for strike, Andaya asks: ?Where are they now? Where were they when the people were going hungry after they lost their jobs??

These people, ?ang magagaling (the skilled ones),? as they dub them, essentially agitated the workers and then abandoned them even after the strike became violent (in the ?Luisita Massacre?).

But such viewpoints only rarely get aired in media stories about Luisita. Both Andaya and Zuñiga now say they will talk with the media only in interviews which will be aired live. Says Zuñiga: ?I talk with TV reporters for hours, and then I see on TV only a few seconds of me, saying only the things the reporter wanted to hear.? Complains Andaya: ?And that?s only when they choose to use our interviews. Once, I alerted all my relatives to watch out for my interview on a TV news show. We all waited all night, and none of my footage was used!?

Cojuangco recalls a farm worker complaining to him that after a reporter asked for an interview the next day, he spent P40 for a haircut, only to wait the entire day without seeing even the shadow of the reporter.

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WELL, it is true that writing about Hacienda Luisita as a social justice issue is more ?sexy? than writing about it simply as a labor dispute, or a question of interpreting the law.

But I guess it?s a basic requirement that before we paint the Luisita situation, we work first from the point of view of those most affected, those who will have to live with the arrangement: the farm workers and their families.

Perhaps those who criticize the plebiscite and the way it was conducted have a point, that farm workers would cling to the easiest option and the immediate monetary reward rather than trust their ability to carve out their future on the small farm plots.

But those who say they are behind the farm workers should perhaps also respect their opinion, and not foist an option on them, when they are the ones who must live the rest of their lives with the chosen alternative.