Luisita mediation panel will delay justice to farmers

We fear that the creation of a mediation panel on the issue of Hacienda Luisita by the Supreme Court is the SC’s attempt to evade its responsibility to rule on the controversial case. We fear, moreover, that the formation of the mediation panel – which comes at a juncture when the SC can already decide to junk the Stock Distribution Scheme in Luisita and distribute land there – can be another ploy to deny lands to Luisita farmers.

Because the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council’s 2005 resolution is a government decision, the Aquino government should push for its implementation. The oral arguments last August 24, however, showed that the Aquino government has softened on implementing the resolution. This can only mean that the Cojuangco and Aquino clans are still hell-bent on keeping the land, despite the legal and moral reasons for them to allow the land to be subjected to land reform. 

Solicitor-General Jose Anselmo Cadiz’s statements show that the government is open to the sham compromise agreement hatched by the Hacienda Luisita Incorporated. While he claims that President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has not instructed him to speak in favor of the HLI, Cadiz is clearly speaking for the HLI in his pronouncements. This profession of neutrality on the part of the Aquino government is nothing but hypocrisy. #