Militant fishermen and farmers are joining forces to assert the farmers’ rights over Hacienda Luisita on the eve of the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision rejecting the Hacienda’s Stock Distribution Option five years ago.
They have launched a campaign to occupy the 6,000 hectare sugar plantation in Tarlac City.
April 24, 2017 marks the 5th year of the SC decision junking the SDO and ordering the Department of Agrarian Reform to distribute 4,099 hectares of Hacienda Luisita to the rightful farmer-beneficiaries.
But five years after the SC ruling, farmers said they have yet to control their land , no thanks to deceptive maneuvers and harassments of the hacienda owners against the farmer-beneficiaries. The Cojuangco-Aquinos have used the tambiolo or raffle system in giving away the lands to the farmers.
“The case of Hacienda Luisita is the living example and leading model of land reform denials, reversals and land grabbing by big landlords in the country,” Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chairperson, said in a statement.
“Now is the high time for the farmers to occupy what is rightfully theirs. Even without the Supreme Court ruling, the farmers and farmworkers of Luisita have all the legal, moral and political right to control the vast-tract of sugar estate because they are the ones who cultivate and develop the land from the start,” Hicap said.
The fishermen said that the decades-long land dispute in Hacienda Luisita has already claimed numerous lives of farmers and peasant-advocates who fought for their right to till.
On April 24-25, Luisita farmers and its supporters from Manila and provinces in Central Luzon will hold a collective cultivation or bungkalan at Barangays Cutcut and Balete to enforce their claim on the land.
Luisita Watch network, Bagong Alyasang Makabayan, farmers organizations and broad sectors supported the activity.