FARMERS demolished part of the perimeter wall of Hacienda Luisita on Monday to press for the full implementation of a court decision.
The Supreme Court in November 2011 ruled on the total distribution to farmer beneficiaries of the hacienda, which is owned by the family of former President Benigno Aquino III.
More than a thousand Luisita farmworkers, agrarian reform beneficiaries and supporters successfully occupied on Monday portions of the fenced farmland in Barangay Balete.
The militant assertion coincides with the fifth year commemoration of the Supreme Court’s final decision to distribute the 6,453 hectares to the farmer-beneficiaries.
Early Monday morning, farmworkers marched to the fenced land in Barangay Balete and started to break down the fortified concrete barriers of the property that was illegally converted and sold by the Cojuangco-Aquinos’ Tarlac Development Corp. to the Yuchengcos days after the heinous Hacienda Luisita massacre.
The property is part of the bungkalan or collective cultivation area previously tilled by farmworkers before RCBC fenced the property in 2013.
“This is just the start of our actions to reclaim our farmlands. We have demolished the walls—the symbol of the Cojuangco-Aquinos’ land grabbing and terror in Luisita,’’ said Rudy Corpuz, secretary of the Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Asyenda Luisita.
“For decades, we were barred from entering our farmlands. Private security guards destroyed our crops and harassed our leaders and members. The former DAR under Virgilio delos Reyes implemented the bogus tambiolo land reform raffle. The Lorenzos of Mindanao invested in Central Azucarera de Tarlac and continue to exploit sugar mill workers and sacadas. We are fighting back again. It is our right and duty to defend our right to the land and reclaim what is rightfully ours.”
Said KMP secretary general Antonio Flores: “We will continue to assert free land distribution through local peasant struggles, the passage of a genuine agrarian reform program and the approval of a Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the government.”