5,000 Luisita Workers
To Lose Jobs
in Cojuangco-GMA Land Plan
A land use plan which
contains the comprehensive land conversion of the entire Hacienda Luisita
into a commercial and industrial complex will likely force more than 5,000
plantation workers out of their jobs. The LUP includes President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo’s Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTE).
BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat
|
This plan shows that Hacienda Luisita's
conversion is an integral part of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s
commercial and industrial program in the region |
A land use plan (LUP) which contains
the comprehensive land conversion of the entire Hacienda Luisita into a
commercial and industrial complex will likely force more than 5,000
plantation workers out of their jobs. Designed by the SWA Group for the
Luisita Realty Corporation (LRC) in 1998, the LUP includes President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTE).
The LUP is touted by its owners as the
next important commercial and industrial hub in Central Luzon.
But the plan itself could hit some
snags.
Officials of the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) national office in Quezon City, however, said that
except for the 500 hectares that were allowed to be converted into
industrial and residential park in 1995, no other application for land
conversion plan or the SCTE itself has been received by their office.
Interviewed by Bulatlat Feb. 3,
Marichu Mariano, legal officer of DAR’s Center for Land Use Policy
Planning and Implementation (CLUPPI), said the SCTE plan cannot be
implemented unless the landowners (the Cojuangco-Aquino family) apply for
its conversion.
The DAR official also said Hacienda
Luisita’s farm workers should be consulted whether they agree to the new
conversion. If the farmer beneficiaries say no, they could file a protest
at the DAR office.
Mariano warned however that any
protest could only delay the project but could not stop the conversion. At
most, she said, the farmer beneficiaries who stand to lose their jobs
could only expect a “just compensation.”
Family plan
The Hacienda Luisita land use plan, a
copy of which was obtained by Bulatlat, shows that the family of
former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino
plan to
convert all its agricultural lands in Tarlac into commercial, industrial,
residential and recreational parks.
Located 120 kms north of Manila, the
6,443-ha sugarcane plantation, mill and refinery lies in the tri-boundary
of the municipalities of Tarlac province – Tarlac City, Concepcion and La
Paz.
Approved for re-classification by the
Office of the Sangguniang Bayan on Sept. 1, 1995 through Resolution No.
280, Hacienda Luisita has been included in the zoning map of the
municipality of Tarlac.
On the other hand, the LUP submitted
by its developer, LRC - a subsidiary of the Jose Cojuangco and Sons, Inc.
or JCSI - covers 3,290 hectares of the 4,915-hectare sugarcane plantation.
The plantation is also owned and operated by another JCSI subsidiary, the
Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI).
The SCTE, on the other hand, is part
of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s pet project, the Global Gateway - an
inter-modal transportation park using the Subic Container Port Terminal
and the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport.
10-point agenda
The Global Gateway project is under
the Subic and Clark Economic Zones which the president included in the
10-point agenda she aims to achieve in her new six-year term.
In a recent speech, the President
admitted that she has spearheaded this project since she was secretary of
the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) several years ago.
The P18.7-billion SCTE will stretch 90
kms from Concepcion and will exit northward between La Paz and Tarlac
City. The 60-meter-wide expressway will pass through sugarcanes in the
middle of the hacienda slicing through six of the hacienda’s 11 barangays
(villages) – Balete, Central, Cut-Cut II, Lourdes (Texas), Mapalacsiao and
Bantog.
The ambitious project will rip up
around 66 hectares of sugarcane and is being implemented by the Bases
Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) through a loan from the Japan Bank
for International Cooperation (JBIC). BCDA pronouncements say it is
expected to operate this year barring any problems from acquiring the
right of way.
Link up
The President’s SCTE is planned to
provide the shortest, direct and efficient artery linking up economic
areas in Central Luzon, particularly the Subic Bay Special Economic Zone
and Freeport Zone in Zambales, the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga
and the Luisita Industrial Park in Tarlac, the BCDA further said.
The
proposed road alignment will cut across rivers and lahar watersheds, and
will include the construction of 35 bridges and minor drainage structures.
Meanwhile, a Tarlac city councilor,
Abel Ladera, said the construction of the expressway in the heart of the
sugar plantation only confirms what many farm workers fear: that Hacienda
Luisita is being designed to be part of President Macapagal-Arroyo’s
commercial and industrial program.
“Sinasabay ng mga Cojuangco ang
lupain ng asyenda sa comprehensive plan ng bansa,” said Ladera, who
chairs the city council’s committee on labor and employment.
A check into the LUP shows that the
Cojuangcos do not intend to retain parcels of land for agriculture.
Consequently, more than 5,000 sugar farmers face to lose their jobs and
worse, their right to Hacienda Luisita as farm beneficiaries under the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the centerpiece program of
the post-dictator administration of Cojuangco-Aquino.
Long-term
Ladera however
explained that the LUP as a whole is long-term since the entire
agricultural land (4,415 hectares out of the original 6,443 hectares) is
still under contract for 30 years through the Stock Distribution Option (SDO).
The SDO is a scheme
under the CARP that allows the landowner to form a corporate farm and
distribute stocks instead of land to tenants.
The scheme has been
denounced as an instrument used by landlords and allowed by government to
evade CARP.
Hacienda Luisita was formerly owned by
the Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco). It formed a spin-off corporation,
the HLI, in order to operationalize the SDO in 1989. It essentially made
the farm beneficiaries part-owners of the corporate farm over 33 percent
of its stocks that are supposed to be distributed to more than 5,000 of
them within 30 years, the life span of the stock scheme.
In a previous interview with
Bulatlat, lawyer Vigor Mendoza, HLI’s vice president for external
affairs, in effect, confirmed the farmer beneficiaries’ fears of losing
their right to the hacienda when he said that they are to benefit only
from the gross sales of the agricultural lands. Once the land is converted
to other uses and sold to other companies, the farmer beneficiaries will
cease to benefit from it, he said.
Getting ready for the full-blast
conversion, several parts of the hacienda have been converted to
industrial, commercial, residential and recreational purposes since 1989,
for instance: the Luisita Industrial Park 1 (120 has.), the Aqua Farm and
Homesite Phases I and II (50 has.), the Luisita Business Park (20 has.),
the recently-converted Luisita Industrial Park 2 or the Central Techno
Park (500 has.).
Exclusive residential areas include
the Family Park Homes Subdivision, the Don Pepe Cojuangco Subdivision
(Phases 1-4) and the Las Haciendas Industrial Subdivision. The St. Luis
Subdivision is also under development.
Mind setting
Part of the provisions set by the
re-classification of the hacienda land is for the Cojuangcos to “establish
a vocational training center to provide residents free and affordable
means of acquiring technical skills required by prospective investors.”
Councilor Ladera said the owners of
the hacienda have established training centers to condition the minds of
the farmer beneficiaries and their kin to accept the land use plan. “Their
target is to shift them from agricultural to industrial workers,” he said.
However, Ladera belied the Cojuangcos’
claim that the hacienda farmers will be given preferential jobs. While,
for instance, the LIP-1 houses 15 medium-industries, only 20 percent of
its 6,000-workforce comes from the hacienda.
Plantation workers who are trained
into industrial workers cannot expect better opportunities, Ladera also
said. Presently, whether as farm workers or industry laborers, the people
suffer from low wages and job insecurity.
In fact, he said, the semi-conductors
in LIP 1 are starting to retrench regular workers and are hiring casual
workers. From 3,500, the number of regular workers at LIP 1 is down to
2,800 at the end of last year with about 1,500 hired as casuals. They have
also introduced an early retirement scheme since September last year.
Who’s to gain?
Rene Galang, president of the United
Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU), said in an interview with Bulatlat
that plantation workers stand to gain nothing from the land conversion
program of Hacienda Luisita.
Although he said their union welcomes
the President’s intervention to have the labor dispute solved peacefully,
Galang said their union still holds the president accountable for the Nov.
16 massacre of seven strikers, accusing her of colluding with the
Cojuangcos to break the strike by force.
Aside from hundreds of policemen from
all over Central Luzon, Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas deputized
several companies of soldiers from the Tarlac-based Northern Luzon Command
to end the strike.
In two recent Senate hearings over the
Nov. 16 massacre in Tarlac, opposition Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said that
only the President, as commander in chief, can deputize the military. The
senator insisted that the labor secretary’s deputization of the military
to effect her assumption of jurisdiction (AJ) order had the blessings of
the President. Bulatlat
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