The crumbling colossus of Tarlac
Hacienda Luisita is such a huge behemoth standing astride the social landscape of this country that the ground is shaking as it is poised to be dismantled by the Supreme Court decision ordering the demolition of its corporate support structure—the Stock Distribution Plan (SDO)—to make way for the distribution of the sugar estate’s land to its 6,296 workers.
The scale of the dismantling staggers the imagination in such a way that it compels comparison with the devastation of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, when it was destroyed by an earthquake in 224 B.C.
Luisita is not only the country’s largest landed estate—with its 4,816 hectares of land, it is also larger than Metro Manila. And it is more than an economic production unit of sugar—one of the country’s top 10 export products for more than a century. It is the seat of the economic empire and the social and political base of one of the leading oligarchies in the country—the Cojuangco-Aquino political dynasty. It is also the foremost symbol of the iniquitous agrarian system that has been the hotbed of a number of peasant unrest and rebellions since the time of the Commonwealth government—among them, the communist Huk insurrection in the 1950s and the Mendiola massacre during the administration of President Cory Aquino, architect of the 1988 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL), which embodies the SDO, that she put in place in lieu of the CARL-mandated land distribution.
Against this turbulent setting, the Nov. 22 Supreme Court decision that ordered the dissolution of the SDO system and restored agrarian reform to its original concept—i.e, putting the land in the hands of farmers who till the soil—should be examined. The Court’s decision, which invalidated the SDO, was in effect not only a social revolution, it also raised a number of issues among which are: How will the shift of land ownership affect the social and economic power of the Aquino-Cojuangco dynasty, particularly that of President Aquino, as a social reform agent; how will it affect the balance of power among the political dynasties currently locked in a vicious vendetta. (I’m referring to the Aquino and Macapagal dynasties, both based in Central Luzon, the heartland of agrarian unrest); and how will the farmer-beneficiaries be empowered to enjoy the intended fruits of land ownership? Otherwise, the Court’s decision could be reduced into an empty exercise in agrarian reformism.
There are no immediate answers to these issues. I believe that the impact of the decision in economic and political terms has not sufficiently sunk into our minds, given the fact that it was promulgated only less than two weeks. Nevertheless, we can’t discount the importance of putting these issues in context to aid some modest understanding of what’s at stake. I propose to start the examination of this fundamental overhaul of the agrarian issue from the bottom—from the point of view of the beneficiaries, the victims of the old agrarian system, how they could be empowered by this reform. I’m more concerned about them than the elite power actors who can bash each other’s heads for all they care, and can look after themselves. The peasants can’t.
In one of his early reactions to the decision, President Aquino emphasized two points: to “empower the farmers” but also to ensure that landowners are “justly compensated for giving up their land.” The first requires political will and government’s involvement, not lip service; and agricultural support inputs and services to the emancipated farmers. Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala got the point. He said Hacienda Luisita should serve as a test of the agriculture department’s extension services. Once the Court declares its decision final and executory, the government would make sure that it has the equipment and facilities to make the land productive.
As pointed out by an Inquirer editorial on Nov. 25, getting titles to their land “isn’t going to raise incomes and the standard of living of the farmworkers’ families. With 6,296 original farmworkers dividing 4,816 hectares, each will get to own only 7,650 square meters of land. Very few families can survive, much less thrive, on such a tiny parcel of land,” the editorial said. “They will need help from the government to organize and consolidate their landholdings to form economically viable farms.… Only the government can provide such help on the scale necessary to uplift their condition.”
A Jan. 22, 2010 report by Stephanie Dychiu, a researcher, said that in 1989, the Cojuangcos justified Luisita’s SDO by saying that it was impractical to divide the hacienda’s 4,915.75 hectares among 6,229 farmworkers, as this would result in less than one hectare each. The Cojuangcos cited a study by the University of Asia & the Pacific to support their claim.
The claim was contradicted by a study of the National Economic and Development Authority, which stated that the “farmworkers could still earn more with 0.78 hectares than with stocks.” The Neda study was ignored by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC).
The priority concern of the Aquino administration seems to be the amount of the “fair compensation” the Cojuangco family will get for their land in Luisita. That’s the view from the top. That said, an examination of the other issues (including compensation) related to impact of redistribution from the perspective of the lower rungs of society may now proceed. It’s dangerous to frustrate the farmers again after the shattered dreams of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program of 1988.
