Danding Cojuangco's "corporative scheme":
Another bane to farmers

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

There is a a new name for legalized landgrabbing: Eduardo 'Danding' Cojuangco's "corporative scheme", which the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has declared as Administrative Order No. 9 (AO 9). The order dovetails the government's Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) which entices big local and foreign capitalists to take full ownership of and profit from, the Philippines natural resources and exploit the Filipino people.

The "corporative scheme" coupled with AFMA exacerbate the intense poverty already afflicting the peasantry. They intensify the feudal and semifeudal exploitation and oppression of the peasantry and enable big comprador-landlords like Cojuangco to accelerate their accumulation of wealth.

AO 9 and AFMA are being foisted on the peasantry even as the government, a puppet of US imperialism and a representative of the Marcos cronies, auctions off the country's lands and forests to be owned 100% by foreigners, allows the influx of cheap imports and brutally grabs land from farmers.

The "corporative scheme": a review

The "corporative scheme" involves the establishment of "farmers' cooperatives" that are supervised by and tightly linked to a corporation. Farmers belonging to the "cooperative" are in charge of tilling the land that they supposedly own while their "partner" corporation takes charge of capital investments, technical expertise, equipment and most of all, of controlling the business and using the land. This has been vaunted as a means, and a model one at that, of distributing land to landless farmers under the government's sham land reform program.

The "corporative scheme" was introduced as another pretense at land reform even as landlords interests are being flagrantly upheld to the detriment of the peasant masses. It is nothing but Danding Cojuangco s newest label for the old stock-sharing scheme initiated by his cousins from Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac. Danding mimicked the scheme in one of his deals involving over 4,000 hectares of land in Negros.

To build a corporative , landlords begin by establishing a corporation to administer their landholdings. They then distribute imaginary shares of the corporation to a landlord-organized cooperative composed of their tenant-farmers to make them appear as co-owners of the land they till. The farmers are also promised a share in the profits after harvest. But with the comprador-landlords retaining control over the partnership , it becomes easy enough for them to manipulate figures on harvests and profits so that the farmers gain very little, if at all.

Danding: Scourge to farmers

The implementation of Danding Cojuangco s "corporative scheme" proves the existence of a conspiracy between him and the US-Estrada regime for the recovery of Cojuangco s ill-gotten wealth and his full return to power. The scheme is also in preparation for Danding s plans to catapult himself as the foremost partner of multinational agribusiness and mining corporations that shall swoop down on the country like birds of prey once Estrada succeeds in obliterating the few remaining constitutional restrictions on foreign business.

But the anti-farmer character of the "corporative scheme" continues to rear its ugly head.

In Negros, farmers who were supposed to have received land given away for free by Danding have come forward to belie this claim. They have produced papers showing that ECJ & Sons Agricultural Enterprises, Inc., (the Cojuangco-owned corporation set up for one of Danding s stock-sharing schemes involving 4,631 hectares of land in Negros) was actually obliging them to pay for the land at P350,000 per hectare for a period of 10 years.

Cojuangco s partner in crime in deceiving the farmers is no less than the reactionary government. Last year, Antonio Cerilles, secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), granted Cojuangco the rights to 6,400 hectares of agricultural land in Pinggot, Ilog, Negros Occidental. According to official records, the land was to be used for a fruit production and woodpulp processing-related government project. For this, the Estrada regime had allotted P1 billion in public funds. In truth, Danding s co-contractor is Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), a French perfume manufacturer. The land is to be planted with ylang-ylang (a tree known for its fragrant flowers). Danding had offered farmers living on the land a P140 daily wage and a 30% share in Agro-Fruit Corporation (also Danding s), and threatened them with eviction if they refused his offer.

The project has worsened the farmers misery. Because YSL has acquired a patent for the exclusive right to plant, propagate, process and sell ylang-ylang, it has deprived everyone else including the poor farmers of Baranggay Pinggot from using ylang-ylang as a traditional herbal medicine. Instead of distributing land and assisting farmers in upgrading their agricultural infrastructure, the Estrada government shells out massive funds to strengthen Danding s monopoly control over Negros. Cojuangco s appointment of Nehemias dela Cruz, a rebel returnee , to head the Agro-Fruit Corp. completes the picture. Dela Cruz was primarily responsible for convincing the farmers to work for Boss Danding. When the farmers protested, Cerilles merely shrugged this off, claiming that the protesting farmers were not members of the Pinggot AgroForestry Development Association , a farmers cooperative organized by Danding.

In a related case, some 7,000 farmers in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental are being evicted from the government-owned Negros Occidental Agricultural College (NOAC) to give way to Tri-Planters, Inc. (TPI), a private company that plants coffee trees for the giant agribusiness corporation Nestl�. The farmers have a reforestation contract with the DENR (by virtue of Proclamation 459), a fact that has been ignored by the agency. Instead, the DENR ruled in favor of a 10- year lease contract it signed with TPI involving 1,000 hectares of land. The affected farmers are now being unceremoniously ordered to leave the area.

Even schools have not been spared by the sharp talons of the "corporative scheme". It has been revealed that Nestl� would take charge of training NOAC students for their practicum and supply them with coffee seeds for this purpose. The students are thereby exploited for business without pay while in training. Nestl� is also assured of a reservoir of skilled workers for its subsidiaries such as the 500-hectare United Equity Corporation, a plantation owned by Roberto Benedicto, also a former crony of Marcos.

Estrada s continuing deception

The "corporative scheme" is a desperate attempt on the part of the Estrada regime to conceal the intensifying feudal and semifeudal exploitation of the peasantry under the reactionary system:

Continuous conversion of agricultural lands. Estrada recently ordered a moratorium on the conversion of agricultural lands to ensure food security . But in the same vein, he is zealously pushing AO9, AFMA and related policies that give local and foreign capitalists full license to destroy productive lands and forests to grow cash crops and open mining, real estate development and other businesses.

As early as 1998, more than half of the 2.3 million hectares of rice lands nationwide had already been subjected to land use conversion. This puts into ridicule the Department of Agriculture s target of turning the country into the number one rice exporter by 1999. In fact, in 1998, cheap agricultural products had to be imported to make up for shortfalls in production.

Widespread landgrabbing. The antipeople administration also claims that it would accomplish its target for land distribution under CARP within a few years. The biggest local and foreign real estate businessmen, however, like House Speaker Manuel Villar, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and the Ayala family and real estate conglomerates such as the Manila Southcoast Development Inc., Sta. Lucia Realty and Berenguer Estate, have been grabbing agricultural lands with impunity. Also counted among the leading landgrabbers are the most avaricious former Marcos cronies and multinationals. Meanwhile, in Negros Occidental, Bukidnon, Samar, Laguna, Batangas, Bulacan and other parts of the country, more and more Certificates of Land Ownership previously awarded by DAR under CARP are being revoked by the same agency to pave the way for landgrabbing.

Privatizating NIA and emasculating the NFA. Estrada and Angara allegedly plan to pour funds into the agricultural sector to strengthen and upgrade its infrastructure. Instead, Estrada has reduced the scope of the National Food Authority's (NFA) functions and has privatized the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).

The NFA has been relegated to monitoring the price of rice and corn and has been stripped of its role of streamlining the distribution of the country's leading grains nationwide. This has already resulted in the spoilage of tons of corn in Mindanao.

The privatization of the NIA led to the dismissal of its employees. Instead of upgrading irrigation systems for the benefit of poor farmers, the NIA's new management is prioritizing golf courses and cash crop plantations.

The pro-landlord Estrada regime's deceptions can only lead to its further exposure and self-destruction. Time will come when it will no longer be able to worm its way out of the depth of the crisis of its own making and will have no choice but to face a people demanding retribution, with the peasant masses as the main force.

Far from allowing themselves to fall for every deceptive policy, scheme or project foisted on them by the government, the farmers are learning to rely on their own strength and advance along the path of revolutionary struggle. As workers, peasants and all other oppressed classes and sectors of society link arms, it is not only the realization of genuine land reform that becomes a certainty, but also of thoroughgoing social change.

00 July 1999
English Edition

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