Bone of confusion

The 6-4 decision of the Supreme Court calling for a new referendum to determine the wishes of the farmers of Hacienda Luisita will go down in legal history as a classic of confusion, but one with tragic consequences. Some important affirmations about the noble ends of social justice are made, but in the end the decision is a blow against agrarian reform and a mockery of the clarity and resolution we expect from the court of last resort.

The opening paragraph of Justice Lourdes Sereno’s dissenting opinion explains why the ruling has catastrophe written all over it. “What the majority has created by its Decision are several legal and operational aberrations that will only set back the long-term resolution of the agrarian conflicts involving Hacienda Luisita and create even more havoc in our legal system. Instead of definitively putting the multi-angled issues to rest, the majority has only succeeded in throwing back the agrarian problem to the farmers, the original landowners and the Department of Agrarian Reform.”

The worst part is that, in throwing back the problem to the first parties, the majority of voting justices severed the issue from its legal base. It invalidated the stock distribution option that was at the heart of the issue (by affirming the two PARC resolutions of 2005 and 2006 which nullified the 1989 referendum that had led to the hacienda’s stock distribution plan or SDP)—and then proceeded to direct the DAR to conduct a new referendum to ask the Luisita farmers whether they want to choose the stock option all over again.

Again, the language of Sereno’s dissent is unmistakable: “Without any legal basis left to support the SDP after the pronouncement of the complete nullity of the administrative approval thereof, the majority proceeded to allow the farmworker-beneficiaries (FWBs) of Hacienda Luisita the option to choose a completely legally baseless arrangement. It is legally baseless because an SDP and its operating agreement, a Stock Distribution Option Agreement (SDOA), can only be valid with the corresponding PARC approval. There is not a single legal twig on which the order to proceed with the voting option can hang, except the will of this Court’s majority.”

In other words, and to quote the trenchant summary of the decision released by Akbayan, the Court issued a “confusing decision to disapprove the Stock Distribution Option … only to mind-bogglingly call for a referendum among Hacienda Luisita farmers to help them ‘decide’ whether they want the stock distribution option … or land distribution.”

The ruling is worse than the flip-flops which have marked some of the Court’s recent decisions, such as on the cityhood issue, if only because here the flip-flop—the bone of confusion, to coin a phrase—is already contained in one decision. The majority decision, written by Justice Presbitero Velasco, begins with a majestic overview of the long-festering problem of agrarian reform: “Through the years, this battle cry and root of discord continues to reflect the seemingly ceaseless discourse on, and great disparity in, the distribution of land among the people …. the face of land reform varies and is masked in myriads of ways. The stated goal, however, remains the same: clear the way for the true freedom of the farmer.”

And yet that is precisely what the ruling fails to do. Under the (admittedly noble) principle of greater participation, the hacienda’s farmers are asked to once again choose between a stock plan and outright land redistribution—even though the current “face of land reform” (the extended agrarian reform law) already frowns on the stock distribution option. Talk about putting obstacles in the path of the farmer’s true freedom.

And that “seemingly ceaseless discourse” the majority decision refers to in its opening paragraph? The ruling effectively ensures that the “discourse,” the seemingly never-ending legal wrangling over the country’s most high-profile agrarian reform case, will continue. We do not agree with the apocalyptic undertone beneath the official response of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, to the effect that the decision “signals the start of a more intense struggle” for Luisita’s farmers, but we can certainly see where the KMP is coming from. The Court’s pass-the-buck decision only fans the flames.