“Since (we) are still stockholders and beneficiaries of the subject land, we have the right to information on such matter and HLI is under obligation to disclose whatever nature or kind of agreement it has entered or it intends to enter into with Wahaha with the assistance of DTI,” the statement of Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita read.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Hacienda Luisita farm workers filed a petition before the Supreme Court to compel the Hacienda Luisita management and the Department of Trade and Industry to explain the reported deal it entered into with Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. Ltd. of China and to restrain it from from further engaging in any negotiation and agreement with Wahaha Group or any corporation until the agrarian dispute involving the 6,453 hectares of the hacienda has been decided by the High Court.
“Since (we) are still stockholders and beneficiaries of the subject land, we have the right to information on such matter and HLI is under obligation to disclose whatever nature or kind of agreement it has entered or it intends to enter into with Wahaha with the assistance of DTI,” the statement of Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita read.
The Hacienda Luisita, a 6,453 real estate, is co-owned by President Benigno Cojuangco Aquino III. It is going through an agrarian dispute for more than half a decade already. For over 20 years, HLI has been implementing a Stock Distribution Option, where farmer beneficiaries are supposedly entitled to 33 percent of the total shares of stock of Hacienda Luisita, Inc.. In 2005, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council decided to repeal the implementation of the SDO in Hacienda Luisita for failing to improve the lives of the farmer beneficiaries. The Cojuanco-Aquinos then filed a temporary restraining order before the Supreme Court, which was issued in 2006. The High Court has yet to decide on the merits of the case.
Despite these, however, a national daily reported on October 29 that the Hacienda Luisita management has started conducting ‘exploratory’ talks with Wahaha, the largest softdrinks manufacturer in China. The same report quoted HLI lawyer Vigor Mendoza as saying, “It’s still up in the air, they were just looking around.”
Trade undersecretary Cristino Panlilio, on the other hand, said Hacienda Luisita has not been singled out as they are pushing for a deal with the Chinese company to source its sugar from the Philippines, which he deems could be worth billions of pesos. “He stressed that any decision on the project will have to await the Supreme Court ruling,” the report read.
Farmer beneficiaries and Hacienda Luisita peasant organization Ambala, for their part, submitted a petition before the Supreme Court asking it to look into the reported deal with Wahaha. The group said that while the”reports may still be hearsay, if strict application of the rules of evidence is to be applied, the private respondents (Ambala) worry that petitioner (HLI management) is already planning to dispose the lands subject matter of the case to a foreign corporation…”
The petition asked the Supreme Court to direct the HLI management to present documents that they “prepared, executed, signed or concluded” with the Wahaha group. The farmers’ group is insisting that they have the right to know being a stockholder of the hacienda.
And while there may be no deal yet, “…the act of negotiating to enter into such deal or of entertaining the possibility of perfecting such an agreement with the said Chinese firm sends shivers down the spine of herein private respondents.” (Bulatlat.com)
