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The recent 14-0 decision of the Supreme Court on November 22, 20110 that favoured the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita, came as a breath of fresh air that have inspired rural reform advocates in the Philippines. The decision capped decades of difficult, and often times bloody, struggle of farm workers to own the lands they till. As a result, hope for reform has been rekindled and demands for the land redistribution of the remaining 1.4 million hectares targeted under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) have been raised.

A colonial vestige of the Spanish hacienda system, Hacienda Luisita is a national symbol of feudal domination in a country teeming with poverty. It is thus an important arena of struggle for redistributive agrarian reform in the country. The owning family of former President Cory Aquino and now current president Noynoy Aquino acquired the big sugar estate in 1957 from its original Spanish owners through loans with condition that the land will be redistributed to the farmers ten years after the acquisition. The Cojuangcos, however, successfully evaded land redistribution. The controversial stock distribution option recently revoked by the Supreme Court was the latest scheme of the Cojuangco family to evade land redistribution which merely gave corporate stocks certificate as a form of compliance to agrarian reform. It has thus symbolized the "sacred cows" in the country - untouchable lands owned by the most powerful and influential families - through time.

 

The redistribution of the 4,915-hectare hacienda to its more than 6,000 farm workers has thus become a real opportunity with the recent decision of the SC. Luisita's long standing symbol as a feudal enclave is turning around as a symbol of pro-poor social change.

 

The Rural Poor Institute for Land and Human Rights Services, Inc. (RIGHTS), through various support groups, including ICCO, church personalities and various non-government organizations played a pivotal role in the run-up to the SC decision through organizing, legal assistance, media work, broad support formation, and international solidarity work. RIGHTS community organizers who have worked for the redistribution of the said hacienda from the late 80s' was able to establish the Farmworkers Agrarian Reform Movement - Luisita (FARM) in 2005 as an alternative organization for a more autonomous farm workers movement that pursues a legal-political strategy around land rights under the existing agrarian reform program of the government, then known as CARP, now CARPER.

 

A broad support group, CARPER for Hacienda Luisita Movement (C4HLM), a coalition of advocates, NGOs and church personalities, was also established as an expression of popular support to the call for the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita. Advocate-lawyers, led by no less than former Constitutional Commission member and former Commission on Election Chair, Atty. Christian Monsod also volunteered to support the legal needs of FARM from the deliberation at the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council in 2005 all the way to deliberation in the Supreme Court.

 

The imminent land transfer of Luisita to its farm workers provides the impetus for undertaking a deeper economic democratization process that will transform the large estate into a model for rural poor empowerment in the country. The immediate challenge is to push the government to undertake a serious social preparation phase towards eventual land redistribution. The transition from poverty and landlessness to communities of small holders will be a difficult task. It will require a comprehensive economic program that will promote new production systems around sustainable economic livelihoods aimed ultimately at liberating farm workers from poverty.

 

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