The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) exposed that the controlling interest in Hacienda Luisita now, is no longer the Don Pedro, Peping nor Cory block of the Cojuangcos, it is none other than the Pac-man himself, Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. 

According to Ka Willy Marbella, spokesperson of KMP, “this is what we feared the former controlling interests in HLI, have been eased out by Danding because of his plans to make the estate into a regional hub for his business. What the Cojuangco’s did was a dastardly act against the farm workers, which should be condemned to high heavens. This would mean that rampant land use conversion would be the order of the day for the hacienda,”

“This is a violation even of the “stock distribution option” (SDO) scheme of then President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and further exposes the inutility of the scheme as well as its extreme bias for the Cojuangcos. It is right and just for the farm workers to call for its junking. This also exposes the fact that the Cojuangcos are negotiating in bad faith. All they wanted to do is to settle only the labor dispute so that the land question can be obscured and Danding can slip in undetected,” added the peasant leader.

As can be remembered reports on Danding’s interest in Hacienda Luisita first came out in the papers early November last year but he denied it. But as our sources would attest as early as August the people of Danding are already in the HLI management, which prompted the retrenchment of the 326 farm workers, because they were seen as the ones who would oppose the conversion of the estate and the consequent displacement of the more than 30,000 inhabitants of the hacienda.

Meanwhile, Carl Anthony Ala, public information officer of the group, “the veracity of our expose’ is impeccable because it is one of the Cojuangcos’ most trusted people who told us of the matter. This incident proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Cojuangco family conspired to displace the rightful owners of the hacienda land and when they resisted the Cojuangcos with the help of the DOLE, AFP, PNP and their Yellow army sanctioned the Hacienda Luisita massacre in the vain hope that the farm workers would be cowed of abandoning the fight,”

“What is worse though is up till now the Department of Land Reform (DLR) is still doing nothing to junk the SDO and for the farm workers to have their rightful lands. The strike has been ongoing for more than 3 months and the farm workers are “ginigisa sa sarili nilang mantika ng mga Cojuangco,” maybe its time to take matters into their own hands,” ended Ala. # # #
 

KMP - 26 February 2005