AFP, Police Can’t Win ‘Hearts and Minds’ at Hacienda Luisita

Published on April 3, 2005

Hacienda Luisita continues to be a battle ground, albeit unarmed, between residents and government troops. Since March 10, three companies of soldiers have been deployed here while angry people and village officials have been trying to drive them away by sheer grit and numbers.

BY ABNER BOLOS
Bulatlat.com

“We are your soldiers. We are here to protect you and keep the peace,” a young private from the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (NOLCOM) told residents in Barangay (village) Mapalacsiao in Hacienda Luisita. About 20 of them were standing at the edge of the village next to the sugar cane fields facing off a big crowd that have gathered early that morning to drive them away.

“You have no business being here. You have no name plates, no papers and no permission from the barangay council. We are at peace here and we did not request your presence,” Ricardo Ramos, village chairman and president of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), told the soldiers above the din of angry shouting.

After a few more minutes of heckling by the villagers and protestations from the soldiers, bags, guns and belongings were picked up and the troops slowly walked away toward the sugar cane fields and the next village several kilometers away.

Over the past month, the scene will be repeated in almost all of the 10 barangays of Hacienda Luisita, the 6,000-ha sugar plantation owned by the family of former president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino and site of the most controversial and bloody workers’ strike in the country’s labor history.

DLR investigation

Union officials believe that the army deployment was intended to influence the results of the investigation by the Department of Land Reform (DLR) regarding the implementation of stock distribution option in the hacienda held last March 15.

In fact, a Bulatlat source from the DLR said the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) management actually wrote to members of Task Force Hacienda Luisita (TFHL), asking them to postpone the investigation.

The letter supposedly cited the presence of “heavily armed New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas” in the area, allegedly to avenge the death of slain Tarlac City Councilor Abel Ladera who was killed in broad daylight March 3 in the same city.

The DLR source added that the HLI letter confirmed that three army companies from Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija have been deployed in the area since March 10.

With this development, the HLI management reportedly warned TFHL that an armed confrontation between the two parties may occur and the possibility of being caught in the crossfire is not remote.

This warning may have brought anxiety to some members of the TFHL, the DLR source told Bulatlat. The source said some of the TFHL members admitted that had the HLI letter reached them earlier, they would not have gone through with the investigation.

But the heavy presence of the military in the hacienda on the day of the DLR investigation did not prevent the farm workers from speaking out their minds regarding the SDO.

“If that was their intention, then they failed miserably because in the village consultations conducted by DLR officials, our members went on record to say that they want the SDO revoked and the military to withdraw immediately,” ULWU president Rene Galang said.

Galang said the main objective of the troop deployment is to instill fear among the people, discourage them from manning the picket line and eventually end the strike through another violent dispersal.

Deployment

Lt. Col. Preme Monta, NOLCOM spokesperson, told reporters that the deployment of troops is necessary because “armed men, believed to be New People’s Army [NPA] guerillas were sighted” in the villages inside Hacienda Luisita.

“This is a pursuit operation (against the NPA) to protect the people,” said Monta, a claim belied by local officials.

Ramos told Bulatlat that the barangay council and the barangay tanods (village peace and order units) are enough to maintain peace and order in the hacienda.

“They keep on saying that they (soldiers) are here to protect us but the opposite is true. Whenever soldiers arrive, our normal lives are disrupted. The presence of NPAs is always a convenient excuse for deploying the military,” Ramos said.

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