Compensation?

BACKBENCHER
Rod Kapunan
12/3-4/2011



Now that the Supreme Court has decided last November 23 to distribute the remaining 4,915 hectares of the sprawling Hacienda Luisita —the property which historically has been laced with murders and assassinations—to the farmers, the next question is whether the landlord clan of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III would insist on payment for compensation.

Once this question ripens to actual court litigation it could mean another setback to the farmers who since 1968 have been waiting for their share of the land they tilled. For 43 long years or ten years after the purchase by Don Jose Cojuangco on March 31, 1958 from Tabacalera, the distribution of the original 6,400-hectare hacienda was made part of the condition to secure loan from the Government Service Insurance System and from the then Central Bank of the Philippines.

Specifically, the Monetary Board of the CB, by virtue of Resolution No. 1240, granted to Jose Cojuangco the loan of $2,128,480 for the purchase of the sugar mill. Finding interest in buying the plantation, he secured a second loan of P5.9 million from the GSIS, which was approved by the board of trustees in Resolution No. 3202. Part of the deal was to distribute the land after ten years pursuant to the land reform program of the government.

On its face, the decision is a judicial landmark to the estimated 6,296 farmer-beneficiaries considering that the person who will be affected is no less than the President. They have every reason to rejoice for that would mean their emancipation from the bondage of the soil. But taking a second look at the decision, one could not help suspect that the highly polarized magistrates, with one abstention, coalesced in voting to have the hacienda subdivided.

Maybe the Arroyo-appointed loyalists were out to embarrass what they see as a good-for-nothing administration. For the Aquino-appointed justices, their concurrence has been interpreted as a consciously sorted-out strategy; that possibly, Malacañang had given them the “go” signal. One cannot discount that for in no time the Secretary of Agrarian Reforms, Gil de los Reyes, came out with a statement saying he would immediately seek the enforcement of the decision once it becomes final, while PNoy expressed no objection provided they are paid their just compensation.

To give in to this possible clever scheme of being paid based on the present fair value of the property would amount to another round of swindling. Any right-minded appraiser would say that if ever the owners of the hacienda are to be paid the value for their property, appraisal should be based in the 1968 valuation. The land cannot be assessed beyond that period because the owners stand in default on their loan agreement. So, if they got it say for a total of P10 million, considering that the exchange rate at that time of the peso was 2:1 to the US dollar, the increase in the value of the property could not exceed P200 million by 1968.

More so that a decision has been rendered on December 2, 1985 by then Judge Bernardo Pardo of the Manila Regional Trial Court, Branch XLII, who that early decided in favor of subdividing the hacienda to the farmers. It would not only be unconscionable, but another round of injustice to the farmer-beneficiaries, who by that arrangement, would have to pay the amortization to the government financial institution that will advance the payment of compensation to the Cojuangcos.

Besides, the Cojuangcos have not even accounted for a centavo of the P1.3 billion they earned for the disposition of a portion of the hacienda into industrial estates and the exorbitant payment made by the government for the construction of a right-of-way that cut deep into their manor, nor has presented a record indicating full payment of taxes for the property.

Nonetheless, if it could no longer be distributed to the beneficiaries, at least it should be reverted to those who will be deprived of the land or distributed as dividend to the holders of those worthless SDO who were made to rely on them as supplement to their meager income. In the final analysis, it should be the farmers who should be compensated because of the number of years they were deprived of income from the land which could have been used for their amortization.

For the farmer-beneficiaries, it is not the value of the land that matters, but on its productivity much that they cannot sell that. This notwithstanding that a great portion of the land has become a veritable talahiban after the owners almost abandoned planting sugar. After the Laurel-Langley Agreement expired on July 3, 1974, the so-called sugar barons then lost their preferential sugar quota allocation, which was their main source of income.

In addition, the Cojuangcos cannot for long make Marcos their “whipping boy” for their economic debacle, but on their selfish tenacity to hold on to the property. Presidential Decree Nos. 27 issued on October 12, 1972 and 1066 issued on December 31, 1976 clearly exempted from land reform sugar lands, and Marcos did that to precisely protect the sugar industry.

f there is somebody the Cojuangcos could blame, they should blame Mrs. Aquino herself. In her eagerness to make pasikat that her version of land reform would be much better than that of the “dictator” she denounced, the 1987 Constitution drafted by her appointed minions declared in no uncertain terms that all agricultural lands shall be subject to land reform. That was bolstered by the approval of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. When she realized her blunder, she backpedaled by ordering the circumvention of her own laws. Instead of a piece of land, the farmers were given a piece of paper cleverly dubbed as “stock distribution option” (SDO).

Death finally came to their family’s business after her anointed successor, Fidel Ramos, in his usual grand hallucination opened wide the country’s economic door to globalization. Our sugar industry was mercilessly battered by competition because of our inherently high cost of production. Despite that, the Cojuangcos continued to cling on to their property, while converting the choice cuts into industrial estates, thereby gaining more from the business of real estate than in producing sugar.

As usual, the farmers were made to wait, unaware their landlords were already engaged in the speculative selling of lands, and the final trophy was the decision of the Supreme Court for possibly their prayer for just compensation might end up in them becoming the richest family in the country. At the same time, PNoy would appear pro-poor not knowing that the amortization would be equivalent to the proverbial saying of “giving the farmers the rope for them to hang themselves”.

(rodkap@yahoo.com)