HACIENDA LUISITA — Protesting laborers and farmworkers here,
joined by their respective families and reinforced by militant
activists, have practically taken control over nearly all
movements in this sprawling sugar estate owned by the family of
former President Corazon Aquino.
This, as the regional office for Central Luzon
of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) yielded to
demands by local officials in the province and Tarlac City not
order the police anti-riot contingent to have the protesters
dispersed in the course of implementing Labor Sec. Patricia Sto.
Tomas’ return-to-work order.
It was late last Thursday when the number of
rallyists here surged, the bulk of which is at the main gate of
the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT)’s sugar refinery.
Road blocks were also set up by the protesters
along nearly all thoroughfares here, including the one leading to
the Alto compound where Mrs. Aquino and other members of the
Cojuangco family live, as well as the one going to the Luisita
Golf Course and the posh Las Haciendas Luisita subdivision.
In a statement by the corporate affairs office
of the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI), it claimed that the combined
mass actions being staged by the CAT Labor Union (CATLU) and the
United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) created a “reign of
terror.”
The CATLU represents the more than 750 factory
workers at the sugar mill here, while the ULWU is the recognized
labor group of this estate’s more than 5,000 farmworkers
regarded as “co-owners” by Mrs. Aquino’s family in the HLI,
the corporate farming firm established in the late 1980s under the
stock distribution scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP).
But CATLU president, Ric Ramos, said that the
actions taken by the protesters were their “legitimate reaction”
to the purported continued refusal by the management to resume
their stalled collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks, and to
threats of violent dispersal following Sto. Tomas’ order, as
well as her order of “assumption of jurisdiction” over the
labor dispute by the DOLE.
In several instances, HLI’s private security
force and policemen deployed to this estate even had to ask
permission from protesters manning what the rallyists have
described as “people’s blockades” in order for them to pass
through.
It was at exactly 5:30 p.m. last Thursday when
the deadline for the return-to-work order expired, with anti-riot
policemen dispatched by no other than Chief Supt. Quirino dela
Torre, regional police director for Central Luzon, then prepared
to disperse rallyists who have blocked the main entrance and exit
points to the refinery.
But Sto. Tomas’ order was met with vehement
defiance, as police estimated that more than 6,000 villagers from
the 10 barangays in Tarlac City and the towns of Concepcion and La
Paz covered by this vast estate have suddenly massed up at the
mill’s Gate 1.
This, even as the Armed Forces’ Northern
Luzon Command (Nolcom), whose headquarters is located adjacent to
this plantation in Barangay San Miguel, Tarlac City, also deployed
soldiers from the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion to reinforce
anti-riot policemen.
Nolcom spokesman, Lt. Col. Preme Monta, however
declined to disclose how many soldiers were actually dispatched
here.
VIOLENCE AVERTED
But the looming violence was prevented on
interventions by Gov. Jose Yap and Tarlac City Mayor Genaro
Mendoza.
On Friday afternoon, Yap called for an
emergency meeting at his office, which was attended by Quirino,
Mendoza, Ramos, ULWU president Rene Galang; activist lawyer Nenita
Mahinay, counsel for the protesters; Tarlac police provincial
director, Senior Supt. Angelo Sunglao; Tarlac City police chief,
Supt. Rudy Lacadin; DOLE sheriff Francis Reyes; lawyer Elenita
Cruz, head for Region-III of the National Conciliation and
Mediation Board; and, Josephino Torres, DOLE’s Central Luzon
regional director.
Also present were board member Amado Go, city
vice mayor Teresita Cabal, and councilors Frank Dayao, Abel Ladera,
Arsenio Lugay, Joji David, Vladimir Rodriguez and Henry de Leon.
The meeting lasted for nearly six hours.
During the discussions, which often turned
emotional and tense, all parties agreed that violence will likely
erupt should the police implement Sto. Tomas’ order by way of
dismantling the rallyists’ picketlines.
Video footages taken by the police that were
shown during the meeting showed that some of the defiant
protesters were attacking lawmen with slingshots, even as there
were also numerous women and children in the main barricade setup
by the rallyists at the mill’s Gate 1.
Galang said that their wives, whom he claimed
were also enraged by the deteriorating situation here that they
have to join them in the picketlines, had to bring along their
children because nobody would care for them in their homes.
Because of this, Yap said he could not risk
bloodshed within his jurisdiction, nor having the police in the
province charged with human rights violations.
As a recourse, Torres himself decided to
temporarily suspend the implementation of his superior’s order,
even as they sought from Sto. Tomas clarifications on how would
the police go about in helping the CAT resume its milling
operations.
There were however light moments among the
rally leaders, police and labor officials during the breaks in
their heated discussions, that some shared cigarettes while having
cups of coffee.
At least two incidents of violent
confrontations between the protesters and anti-riot policemen
already ensued since the mass actions commenced last Nov. 6. Both
sides have blamed each other for these.
RESUME NEGOTIATIONS
During the dialogue, all parties agreed that
the only peaceful way to solve the labor standoff here is for the
stalled negotiations by the CAT and HLI with the CATLU and ULWU,
respectively, have to be resumed.
Cabal said that during one of their breaks,
Mrs. Aquino’s only son, Tarlac second district Rep. Benigno
“Noynoy” Aquino Jr., called her up and told her that the
Cojuangco family “never” abandoned the talks with their
unions.
CATLU was in a deadlock in its CBA talks with
the management, as the union was demanding for a P100 wage hike
and a P30,000 signing bonus for each of its members, but the CAT
was firm in its position that it can only provide a P12 salary
increase and a P12,000 bonus.
ULWU, on the other hand, has been demanding for
the reinstatement of 327 farmworkers who were dismissed by the HLI
last October, even as among those removed from their jobs were
Galang, its vice president, Ildefonso Pingul, and eight other
union officers.
The inclusion of the 10 ULWU officers in the
mass layoff came while the union had just commenced holding CBA
negotiations with the HLI, even as Galang and his colleagues were
even subsequently “replaced” by another set of officials,
supposedly owing to their being no longer connected with the
Cojuangco-owned firm.
Mahinay said that these would belie Rep.
Aquino’s claim, as she insisted that the salary increase being
sought by the CATLU was “just and legitimate,” while the mass
retrenchment carried out by the HLI was “tainted with
union-busting” in a supposed attempt to “rig” CBA talks with
the ULWU.
The protesters’ counsel added that Sto.
Tomas’ order for the DOLE to assume jurisdiction over the labor
dispute and for the workers to return to their jobs “practically
closed all doors for negotiations, and opened the door for
violence.”
BACKCHANNEL
In the same meeting, the local officials have
vowed to do their part in convincing both the Cojuangco family and
protest leaders to hold negotiations instead.
“We are not siding with anyone here,” said
Yap, “we want this issue resolved peacefully for the sake of
everybody.”
Mendoza, whose family has been an ally of the
Cojuangcos here, as his father had served as one of the top
executives in this estate, said that “there could be ways for
adjustments.”
Councilor Dayao said that they will “use all
lines of communications.”
As of noontime Saturday, it was learned that a
“backchannel” was already created for informal talks between
management and protest leaders.
This estate hosts Luzon’s biggest sugar
refinery, as it has the capacity to mill 7,080 tons of sugarcane a
day.
Management has claimed that it was losing P5
million a day because of the labor lockout.
The shutdown of the refinery here came even as
sugar planters from Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, and
elsewhere in Central and Northern Luzon, were having their
harvests milled for this year’s milling season. Some of them
were already transporting their harvests to the Sweet Crystals
Integrated Sugar Mills Corp., a small refinery located in Barangay
Planas in Porac town, Pampanga.
HLI has been claiming to have sustained
operational losses amounting to P215.11 million in 2002 and
P165.49 million last year.
The Hacienda Luisita used to be owned by
Spaniards, but gave it up in the late 1950s after it was besieged
by the “Huk rebellion” then being waged by the old Partido
Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP).
Later acquired by the Cojuangcos, with Mrs.
Aquino’s husband, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.
as its first administrator, the sugar estate remained to be beset
with agrarian unrests, with the farmworkers being instigated by
militants to demand for the actual distribution of lands instead
of being “stockholders” in the HLI.