THE “tambiolo land reform” in the Cojuangco- and Aquino-owned Hacienda Luisita sugar estate is a fraud and the fact that the lawyer of the estate is defending the process is sufficient proof that former Agrarian Reform secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes was conniving with the landowners.
“Everything about the lot allocation through lottery or ‘tambiolo land reform’ is fraudulent. For the past six years, the Aquino-controlled DAR and the Cojuangcos have used deception, coercion and intimidation in Luisita,” said KMP Chairperson Joseph Canlas.
Canlas said the “DAR’s ‘tambiolo land reform’ is a clear circumvention of the 2012 Supreme Court landmark decision that ordered the distribution of Luisita lands to more than 6,000 farmer-beneficiaries.”
“The ‘tambiolo land reform’ in Hacienda Luisita is a grand scheme of the Aquino controlled DAR and the Cojuangcos to divide the ranks of farmworkers and displace legitimate beneficiaries from the land,” Canlas added.
“DAR decieved the farmers by promising them Land Allocation Certificates. Farmers were coerced through force with the heavy presence of military and goons in the hacienda,” Canlas said.
“The maneuvers never stopped. From the bogus CARP, the Stock Distribution Option, up to the tambiolo land reform, all these were used by the Cojuangco-Aquinos to displace legitimate farmer beneficiaries and maintain control over the lands,” the KMP leader said.
The latest incident in Hacienda Luisita which spawned from a memorandum issued by Delos Reyes on May 16, 2016, is divisive and meant to pit agrarian reform beneficiaries against each other.
The fact that Hacienda Luisita lawyer and spokesperson Antonio Ligon even defended the process implemented by the DAR showed that the owners of the estate consciously and deliberately connived with the agency tasked to implement land reform.
Ligon even said DAR carried out the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in Hacienda Luisita properly, in reaction to new DAR secretary Rafael Mariano’s plan to review the implementation of the expired land reform program in Luisita, Canlas said.
“The Cojuangco-Aquinos must lay off Luisita and let new DAR secretary Rafael Mariano do his job,” Canlas said.