DAVAO CITY — Farmers of Hacienda Luisita together with their support groups held a protest action today to commemorate the massacre during the dispersal of protesting farmers on November 16, 2004.
Party-list group Anakpawis, who joined the protest along with activists and members of the International League of People’s Struggle, said they “cannot expect” President Benigno Aquino III to act on the case.
“The Ombudsman literally absolved the Cojuangco-Aquino’s and other high ranking government and military officials involved in the bloody dispersal on November of 2004 in front of the sugar mill were protesters set up their picket line,” said Anakpawis Party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap in a statement.
Hicap said that despite the favorable decision of the Supreme Court to award Hacienda Luisita to the 6,000 farm worker beneficiaries in December 2012 “the Cojuangco-Aquino continues to maintain and control the farm lands with the help of the Department of Agrarian Reform by way of a questionable tambiolo system.”
“Also DAR lets the aryendo system flourished inside Luisita despite it is prohibited under the land reform program. One operator of the aryendo scheme was former LTO chief and known close Aquino ally Virginia Torres,” said Hicap.
He said the Cojuangco-Aquino corporations involved in the Stock Distribution Option scheme also “continues to elude to pay P1.3 Billion as share of the FWB’s on the sale of the 500 ha farmland to RCBC and the 80 ha that was converted into a highway passing through inside Hacienda Luisita as ordered by the SC.”
This on top of the government already paid the Cojuangco-Aquino’s a whopping P470 Million as compensation, said Hicap.
He said the President’s family has “got the best of both worlds by maintaining the control of Luisita and collecting almost half a billion pesos compensation coming from the people’s taxes (and) at the same time eluding the criminal accountability on the Luisita massacre.” (davaotoday.com)
