Workers hope for pro-farmer SC ruling on Luisita

We are hoping that the Supreme Court today will come up with a final pr0-farmer ruling on the decades-old land dispute in Hacienda Luisita. We hope that it will decide in favor of the immediate, free, and unconditional distribution of Luisita’s lands to farmers.

Given the history of the Luisita land dispute, we hope that the SC will junk calls for “just compensation” for the Aquino-Cojuangco landlord family in exchange for the distribution of Luisita lands to farmers. They have raked in so much wealth from the Luisita farmers' toil.

It should be recalled that the money used by the Cojuangco-Aquinos to buy Hacienda Luisita was a loan from the government, the granting of which came with the condition that the land would be subjected to land reform 10 years after it was bought.

We also hope that the land currently occupied by RCBC, as well as the 1,000 hectares which the SC exempted in its Nov. 22, 2011 ruling, will be included in the land that will be distributed to Luisita’s farmers.

We hope that the SC will rule that the Stock Distribution Option is unconstitutional. The SDO scheme has been used by big landlords, most notably by Danding Cojuangco, to block land reform efforts in their haciendas.

The SC has all the basis in the world to decide in favor of Luisita’s farmers in this land dispute. Many farmers and farm workers have died fighting for the distribution of Luisita’s lands to farmers. The distribution of Luisita’s lands to farmers is long overdue.