What’s so precious about Hacienda Luisita?

Is there a gold mine inside Hacienda Luisita? I ask this in dismay after hearing from media that the government might pay as much as P5 billion in just compensation for lands inside the hacienda, which has a total area of 4,915.74. If that is “just compensation,” I do not know what is not! Of course, the Department of Agrarian Reform has hastened to clarify in subsequent reports that the compensation would not reach P5 billion—which means the cost per hectare would be around P1 million.

The farmers say the valuation should only be P50,000 per hectare. Which is but fair and equitable, given, in the first place, what to my mind should more or less be the prevailing market price of non-irrigated sugar or rice land anywhere in Luzon; and, in the second place, based on what appeared in the books of accounts of Hacienda Luisita Inc. at the time the case was under judicial review. It was reported (“SC ruling on Hacienda Luisita,” Inquirer, 11/26/11) that the total assets of HLI was then P590,554,220, of which the contested 4,915.74 hectares had a total book value of P196,630,000, or P40,000 per hectare. Good heavens, P1 million is 24 times higher than the book value of the land per hectare! As things are, it is unthinkable how far the DAR intends to bring the price down after saying the compensation package need not reach P5 billion.

Quite surprisingly, the P1-million-per-hectare value was supposedly based on the HLI’s sale of 80.5 hectares of land to the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway road network at P1 million per hectare. This suddenly reminds me of my little learning in high school about the government’s power of  “eminent domain,” which authorizes the state to appropriate private property for public use without the owner’s consent, conditioned upon payment of just compensation. I cannot imagine how much more the price of that tract of land could have risen had not the government (presumably) exercised that right. Or, did it exercise it at all?  Alas, at least, now I know why our tollway rates are unconscionably high!

—DR. BASILIO “BUTCH” B. AMBIDA,

Ambida Dental Clinic,

74 Kapitan Ponso St.,

Poblacion, Bauan, Batangas