On the eve of the third year of what it described as the “sham” Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper), the militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) yesterday staged a protest camp-out at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in Quezon City and blasted the agency’s paid advertisement that appeared in a major daily Monday calling on farm workers of Hacienda Luisita to attend its “second interview.”
“Instead of immediately moving for the cancellation of the Cojuangco family’s land title, the DAR appears to be very pre-occupied with this PR stunt involving the highly questionable and pro-Cojuangco enlistment scheme in Hacienda Luisita,” said KMP deputy secretary general Willy Marbella.
He added the verification scheme by the DAR is a waste of time and taxpayers’ money, maintaining that 6,296 farm worker beneficiaries were already identified in 1989, the year when the DAR and the Cojuangcos placed the more than 6,000-hectare land under the controversial stock distribution option (SDO) scheme.
The KMP also insists that the so-called verification process by the DAR in Hacienda Luisita is a ploy by the Cojuangcos to evade land distribution.
The DAR’s paid ad calls on farm workers of Hacienda Luisita, the more than 6,000 hectares sugar estate owned by the Cojuangco-Aquinos, to attend the second interview by the department on August 13 to 17.
“Our doubts that this so-called verification process is a brazen maneuver by the Cojuangcos were reinforced by the fact that this scheme was being extended despite the existence of original list of beneficiaries, has even surpassed the original number of beneficiaries, and is now turned into an obvious PR gimmick by the DAR,” Lito Bais, United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) chairman, said.
“Obviously, President Aquino has direct knowledge and tolerates these moves by the DAR in Hacienda Luisita,” Bais noted, adding: “This scheme by the DAR serves the Cojuangcos agenda to bloat the number of beneficiaries, further reduce the size of land for distribution, sow confusion and disunity in our ranks, and eventually put their dummies and loyalists as so-called beneficiaries.”
Reports said the DAR already interviewed 8,400 farmworkers allegedly to validate those who signed the November 1989 stock distribution option.