THE progressive peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) today assailed the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) for allowing the Cojuangco family to maintain control over Hacienda Luisita, a vast sugar estate owned by President Aquino’s family under its sugar block farming scheme.
The KMP issued the statement after reports said that the DAR will campaign for the implementation of sugar block farms between 30 and 50 hectares each that will be managed as one farm so that the activities on the small individual farms are aligned and implemented according to the plans of the whole block.
“The DAR’s so-called block farm project in Hacienda Luisita is another scheme by the DAR to perpetuate the Cojuangco-Aquino family’s control over the lands,” says KMP secretary general Antonio Flores.
Flores said that “under the guise of providing so-called support services, the DAR paved the way for the President’s family to control the whole process of production. It will give the Cojuangcos and their dummies power to dictate on farmers what crop to produce like sugarcane, where and when to plant, and where to sell their produce. Controlling the cycle of production is tantamount to controlling the lands.”
“Worst, the sugar block farming scheme maintains the feudal profit-sharing scheme similar to the notorious stock distribution option,” says Flores.
The KMP recalled that the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court on Hacienda Luisita stating that “the policy on agrarian reform is that control over the agricultural land must always be in the hands of the farmers.”
“Instead of stopping the implementation of the SDO and other non-land transfer schemes after the Supreme Court decision, the DAR itself promotes these anti-peasants schemes that give control over the lands to landlords and agribusinesses under the guise of partnership, contract growing, joint ventures, foreign funding, and loans,” says Flores.
The Sugar Block Farming program was launched in January last year, with 16 pilot block farms in 12 sugar-producing provinces, namely, Albay, Antique, Batangas, Bukidnon, Capiz, Davao del Sur, Iloilo, Leyte, Pampanga, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and Tarlac.
Under the program, DAR shoulders the cost of farm tractors and business development services while DA covers the development of irrigation facilities and improvement of farm-to-mill road. The Sugar Regulatory Authority (SRA), on the other hand, handles agri-technology support and overall management of the block farms.
The KMP reiterated calls for the free distribution of Hacienda Luisita insisting that “the farmworkers have long paid for the lands and the Cojuangco-Aquinos have enriched themselves for more than 55 years of illegal control and monopoly of the hacienda.”
“It is only just that the lands be distributed to farm workers at no cost and the Cojuangcos not to be compensated. The farm workers have long paid for the lands with their sweat and blood. While the Cojuangco-Aquinos have enriched themselves for more than half a century now,” he said.
“Besides, the Cojuangcos still owe the farm workers a total of P1.33 billion for their illegal sale of the 200 hectares of land in 1996, the Luisita Industrial Park, and the 80.51-hectare lot for the anomalous Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX) road network,” says Flores referring to the Supreme Court decision ordering Hacienda Luisita Inc. to pay the farm worker beneficiaries.