DAR Starts Distributing 368 Hectares Hacienda Luisita Lands to Farmers

The country’s Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has started distributing 368 hectares of land owned by the relatives of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III in the controversial Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province. Although the distribution started already, the KMP called the move a “maneuver” to displace tillers.

Hacienda Luisita

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) noted that the supposed distribution of lands allegedly uses the taxpayer’s money in paying the landowner. Hacienda Luisita is owned by the powerful Cojuangco’s and Aquino’s of Tarlac.

According to Antonio Flores, KMP Secretary General, “Obviously, the Cojuangcos are once again in connivance with the DAR in employing the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) to deny farmers of their rights to the lands,”  the KMP secretary general, said in a statement.

Assistant Agrarian Reform Secretary Justin Vincent La Chica said plots in the sugar estate had not been raffled off. The KMP on its part called the system as “tambiolo” which was how the DAR distributed the 4,500 hectares that the Supreme Court ordered in 2012 to give to more than 6,000 farm workers who agreed in 1989 to receive shares of stock instead of land.

Hacienda Luisita spanned more than 6,000 ha when the plantation and its sugar mill were bought by Mr. Aquino’s grandfather, Jose Cojuangco Sr., in 1957 with a promise of land reform.

 

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