Confessions of a Yellow Armyman

Yesterday’s defender, today’s foe

A former member of the Yellow Army and supervisor of Hacienda Luisita, Inc. – the 4,915 ha sugar plantation owned and operated by the Cojuangco-Aquino clan in Tarlac – who admitted to being one of campaigners for the Stock Distribution Option in 1989 tell how he did so - and why they are going against it today. 

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

For almost 16 years, agriculturist Windsor Andaya worked as supervisor in the country’s largest sugar plantation – the 6,443-ha Hacienda Luisita (now 4,915 ha Hacienda Luisita, Inc. or HLI) owned and operated by the powerful Cojuangco-Aquino clan in Tarlac, some 120 kms north of Manila.

His roots are from the hacienda: His father was a former employee of the plantation’s sugar central – the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) – and his mother a former hacienda farm hand.  The Andaya home still stands on a 240-ha lot in Barangay (village) Balite, one of the 11 villages comprising the hacienda.

Windsor started to work as supervisor for the plantation in 1984. Two years later, when one of the heirs of the Cojuangco clan – Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino – became president on the crest of a people’s revolt that overthrew Marcos rule, Andaya found himself lured into the clan’s private army, the Yellow Army.

Yellow Army, SDO

As a trusted servant, Andaya was picked to serve in the Yellow Army – the Israeli-British-trained private armed group formed in 1986. Loyalty to the Cojuangco-Aquino clan was the most important qualification for the yellow army, he told Bulatlat.

Andaya said 90 percent of 106 supervisors at that time were armed and doubled as protectors of the hacienda. “Bilang sentro ng kapangyarihan sunod sa Malacañang, ang Hacienda Luisita ang kailangan naming protektahan” (Being the center of power next to Malacañang, we had to protect Hacienda Luisita). They received no pay or incentive for the extra service, he said however.

Protecting the hacienda was not their only task, Andaya said. They were also told, he said, to convince the farm workers to vote in favor of the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) scheme. “Ginamit din nila kami para manalo ang SDO” (They used us to make sure the stock option would win), he said.

In an article published Dec. 5 last year by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, HLI general counsel Fernando C. Cojuangco insisted that the SDO is both legal and moral it being the choice in two referenda initiated by then Agrarian Reform Secretary Phillip Ella Juico. In the first referendum, Cojuangco said 92.9 percent of the farm workers approved and signed the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA); 96.27 percent of the farm beneficiaries voted in favor of the SDO in the second referendum on Oct. 14, 1989.

In a separate Bulatlat interview, a source from the Presidential Agrarian Reform Committee (PARC) belied reports that the farm beneficiaries were forced to vote for the SDO during the referendum. “Tahimik naman nun” (It was peaceful then), the source said. 

In the late 1980s, the PARC, headed no less by President Aquino, unanimously approved the SDO as the mode of compliance of the Cojuangcos to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), President Aquino’s centerpiece program. Through the SDO, the hacienda owners distributed stocks instead of actual land parcels to more than 5,000 farm beneficiaries. 

However, in a recent House inquiry on the SDO, woman peasant leader and hacienda farm hand Carina Espino testified that they were coerced into voting for the SDO, thus corroborating Andaya’s admission.

In an interview with Bulatlat, hacienda farm hands Ofelia Mendoza, 53, and Rosario Santos, 59, attested that they were harassed during the campaign for the SDO. Both had opposed the SDO and were known in the community during the referendum as being on the side of those who preferred land distribution to stocks.

As a sort of punishment, both Mendoza and Santos were told to leave the plantation when they reported for work the day after the referendum.

Andaya also confirmed that the coercion campaign took place way before the referendum. “Yung ibang supervisors nanakot talaga” (Some of the supervisors issued threats), he said.

One way of harassing the farm workers, he said, was to warn those who go against the SDO that they would lose their jobs in the hacienda. “Halimbawa, iipitin o hindi sila tatanggapin sa trabaho,” he said.

But the campaign for the SDO, he qualified, was more of convincing the people that the SDO was a better choice than actual land distribution. Armed with rifles or pistols and giving away pamphlets and comics that echoed the age-old dictum “prinsipyo o kaldero?” the supervisors succeeded in persuading most of the farm beneficiaries to vote for the SDO, Andaya said.

“Kami ang sandata ng mga Cojuangco” (We were the Cojuangcos’ weapons), he said.

The Yellow Army was disarmed in 1994 after Jose “Aping” Yap won as governor over Margarita “Ting-Ting” Cojuangco, wife of another Cojuangco heir and President Aquino’s brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco.

Turning red

In 2000, Andaya handed his resignation to the HLI management. This was after he tried to organize a supervisors’ union but failed due to management’s interference. “Tinakot nila (management) yung mga myembro kaya kumonti kami” (The management threatened our members so our number dwindled), he said. 

“Ako, naisip ko maiipit na rin ako dito at hindi ko na gusto ang labanan kaya nag-resign na ako” (I was caught in the middle and I wanted to avoid feud so I resigned).

Andaya also attested that the farm workers of the hacienda were better off then compared today. This, he said, was mainly because the agricultural land then was more than 5,000 hectares and thus more work days for the farm workers.

The former HLI supervisor singled out the conversion of the agricultural land to other uses as having reduced the work program and sugarcane production of the hacienda. The hacienda used to produce more than 300,000 tons of sugarcane in one cropping season, he recalled. Production went down to 290,000 as soon as the SDO was implemented in 1989. In a report submitted to the Department of Agrarian Reform (now land reform) on Jan. 31, 2003, HLI president Pedro Cojuangco reported that for crop year 2001-2002, HLI was only able to produce 248,471 tons.

Land conversion involved in particular the reclassification of 3,200 hectares or more than half of the 4,915-ha agricultural land of the hacienda in 1995. Another 500 hectares were converted into industrial and residential use later.

Petition

On Oct. 14, 2003, Andaya, together with Jose Julio Zuñiga and 60 other former supervisors and farm beneficiaries of HLI filed a “petition/protest” against the company for violations of the SDO at the DAR national office in Quezon City. Three of the petitioners have since died.

The supervisors’ petition is the third of its kind, the first being from a group of farm workers filed in 2000 and the other from the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala or the Alliance of Farm Workers in Hacienda Luisita) also in 2003.

In their protest, the supervisors and farm beneficiaries said they have not enjoyed most of the rights and privileges as called for in the memorandum of agreement. In particular, they said, they never received the one percent supervisors’ share during the transition period and the 10 percent dividend from the company after all taxes were paid. What they got was only three percent of the 33 percent representing their equity shares from the payment of the 500 hectares sold. Several homelot awardees have not yet received their individual titles, the petitioners added.

The most controversial subject of their provision is the 500-ha lot that was subject of an LUC in 1995 but has yet to be developed until today.

In an interview, lawyer Patricia Rullo of the Policy, Planning and Legal Affairs department of the land reform department confirmed that an agricultural land applied for conversion but has not been developed within three years is a violation of the Land Use Conversion program. Emmanuel Cochico, HLI vice president for Legal and Corporate Affairs, has denied the allegation.

Yesterday’s defenders, today’s foes

Responding to the petition, the HLI accused Andaya and the others of either “totally misapprehending” or having “a misconception” of the agrarian reform law. Citing the Philippine Corporation Code, management also said the farm-beneficiaries had “no legal claim whatsoever” to the money received by HLI as payment for the 500 hectares it sold to its two affiliates, the LIPCO and Luisita Realty Corporation (LRC).

Meanwhile, the former supervisors are seeking a re-negotiation of the MoA as well as for the “immediate implementation of the law to have the portions so far covered under the CARP finally distributed to the HLI farmers.”

Obviously upset Andaya and Zuñiga could not help but dwell on the past when they were once the obedient followers of their masters. “Nung namatay si Ninoy, sino ang unang rumesponde? Ang taga-Hacienda Luisita. Nung people power, sino ang unang dinala sa Edsa? Ang taga-Hacienda Luisita.” (When Ninoy was assassinated [in 1983], who were the first to respond? The people from Hacienda Luisita. During the people power [1986], who were the first to go to Edsa? Those from Hacienda Luisita.)

“Ngayon, sino ang kalaban nila? Ang taga-Hacienda Luisita. “Hindi nila alam alagaan ang mga tao nila” (Now, who are their enemies? Those from Hacienda Luisita. They don’t know how to take care of their people), Zuñiga said. Bulatlat

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