Correspondence Reports:
The struggle for land goes on in Hacienda Luisita

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

It has been nearly five decades since the Cojuangco family first promised that Hacienda Luisita shall be distributed to its farmworkers. Not a single farmworker has benefited from the promise so far. Instead, they are slowly being deprived not only of the land they have tilled for decades but also of their residential lots. They are slowly being driven out of the hacienda to give way to unproductive land speculation and large-scale land-use conversion.

The Cojuangco family acquired Hacienda Luisita in 1957 as a condition to their purchase of Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) from Tabacalera, an American company. To enable the Cojuangcos to pay for CAT, they obtained a loan from an American bank which the reactionary government guaranteed on the condition that �Hacienda Luisita shall be distributed to small farmers in line with the Administration�s social justice program.�

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) also granted a P7-million loan to the family for the separate purchase of the hacienda on condition that the estate shall be subdivided among the tenants. The Cojuangcos� acquisition of CAT and Hacienda Luisita cost them nothing but the promise to return the land to its legitimate owners.

However, the first generation of farmworkers failed to prevail on the Cojuangcos to redeem their pledge. The Cojuangcos, with the reactionary government at their disposal, maneuvered, schemed and employed violence to make sure the farmworkers would not get hold of the more than 6,000-hectare estate. The family�s bureaucrat-capitalist power meantime grew stronger.

Its power peaked with the ascent to the presidency of Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, younger sister of Jose �Peping� Cojuangco who owns the controlling shares in Hacienda Luisita. Aquino maneuvered to reverse the reactionary court�s order to distribute the hacienda land. Under her regime, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was enacted. The CARP in turn gave rise to the stock-transfer scheme which allowed landlords to set the value of land and convert it to shares of stock.

The scheme allows landlords to distribute shares of stock instead of land to farmworkers. To make sure that they acquire the controlling shares, landlords usually undervalue the land and overvalue the other means of production directly under their control.

Stock distribution option

The stock-transfer scheme, known as the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) in Hacienda Luisita, has been implemented there since 1989. Under the SDO, the Cojuangcos have not only managed to evade their decades-old responsibility but have also gotten rid of all legal obstacles to their ownership of the hacienda. It has undermined the position of the farmworkers as the land�s legitimate owners and has been slowly eliminating their right to possess it.

The SDO does not prohibit the sale of land by its owners. Using its power in the local government, the Cojuangco family had 3,290 hectares or almost 67% of the entire hacienda reclassified as lands subject to land-use conversion. Five hundred hectares were sold immediately to Itutsu and Hasana, two Japanese corporations. Several hundred hectares have also been set aside for the construction of part of the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway Project, which was set for construction as early as 2003.

To prevent the proceeds from land sales from accruing to the farmworkers, the Cojuangco family transfers HLI�s capital to other corporations owned by their clan. The Cojuangcos first sell the lands to their other companies at low prices before selling them to foreign corporations at higher prices. For example, in 1996, HLI ceded 300 hectares to Centennary Holdings Incorporated (CHI), another Cojuangco-owned company, in exchange for P12 million worth of its stocks. In 1998, CHI sold the same 300 hectares for P750 million! In 2001, CHI registered net profits of over P125 million, while HLI, the original owners of the land, posted only P14 million in earnings. The CHI�s net earnings were used for the salaries of the company�s top officials and for other �general expenses.�

The Cojuangco family has complete control over the implementation of the SDO scheme. It has complete control over HLI�s Board of Directors not only due to its control over the majority of HLI�s stocks. For the past 14 years, the Cojuangcos have also controlled the farmworkers and the supervisors� elected representatives who sit on the Board and who collude with the Cojuangcos in their maneuverings and deceptive schemes.

Resistance in the Hacienda

In the face of all this, the farmworkers have no other choice but to resist their gradual eviction from their lands. In September 2003, they expressed their disgust over the SDO scheme when they boycotted the election of their representatives in the Board of Directors of HLI. They have repudiated the yellow leaders who have long colluded with the Cojuangco family, and asserted their legitimate rights as owners of the hacienda lands.

Prior to this, the farmworkers were in solidarity with the

The struggle between the Cojuangco family and the farmworkers is intensifying. In order for the people within the hacienda to effectively resist the worsening deception and acts of violence perpetrated by the Cojuangco family, they must ensure the strengthening of their organizations and the expansion of their alliances both within and outside the hacienda.

The Cojuangcos are unable to use their bureaucrat-capitalist power effectively at all times. The people may take advantage of the conflicts inherent among the reactionaries and the family�s weak points, especially during times when their clan is not part of the ruling clique.

Nevertheless, as long as the semifeudal order that perpetuates the Cojuangco family and other big landlords is not overthrown, tenants and poor peasants will all continue to be denied their land. Only the national-democratic revolution through protracted people�s war can effectively resolve the land problem of the peasantry.

21 April 2004
English Edition

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