HACIENDA LUISITA — Tension continued to mount in this
6,000-hectare sugar plantation Sunday as protesting factory
workers and farmworkers twice clashed with anti-riot policemen,
even as heavily-armed men suspected to be communist rebels burned
some 20 hectares of sugarcane field that was ready for harvest.
CLASHES
The first round of skirmishes between the
rallyists and lawmen took place at around 6 p.m. Saturday at the
Gate 1 of this sprawling estate’s sugar refinery.
Rally leaders claimed that the policemen
started the row when they tried to breakup the human barricade
setup by the protesters using wicker sticks and water canons.
Then before the break of dawn Sunday, another
round of battle between the two sides ensued, also at the same
location, even as the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom),
whose headquarters in Camp Gen. Servillano Aquino is located
adjacent to this sugar plantation, then deployed here a number of
soldiers from the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion.
Protest leader Rene Galang, who was among the
327 farmworkers laid off by the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) last
October and subsequently ousted as president of the United Luisita
Workers’ Union (UWLU), said it was the government elements who
started the on-and-off brawls.
But according to Lt. Col. Preme Monta,
spokesman for the Nolcom, the rallyists twice tried to barge
through the police “line of defense,” and that some among the
protesters allegedly pelted stones as well as teargas.
According to him, the anti-riot lawmen,
dispatched by Tarlac City police chief, Superintendent Rudy
Lacadin, were maintaining the “first line of defense,” while
the 69th IB soldiers only served as a “backup force.”
Monta added that while the troops were under
strict instructions from Nolcom commander, Lt. Gen. Romeo
Dominguez, to observe “maximum tolerance” and to “smile even
when being stoned,” they have to help policemen in pushing back
the protesters in order for the HLI to be able to open up its
factory and resume its refinery’s operations.
He explained that while it was the rallyists’
right to stage protests for redress of grievances, “it is in
line with the duty and mission of the AFP to protect companies
that contribute to the country’s economy.”
SHUTDOWN
It was around noontime Saturday when around 20
members of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) who
were manning the boiler division of this estate’s sugar refinery
abandoned their posts, and with the help of militant activists,
barricaded the factory’s Gate 2.
Without them, the factory had to be shut down,
because it is the boiler that provides steam for the refinery to
produce sugar.
ULWU members, also reinforced by militants,
simultaneously blocked the Gate 1.
The CATLU represents the about 700 factory
workers in this sugar estate, while the ULWU is the recognized
group of the more than 5,000 farmworkers here being regarded as
“co-shareholders” of former President Corazon Aquino’s
family in the HLI under the stock distribution scheme of the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Management has reached a deadlock in its
collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks with the CATLU, which
has been demanding a P100-wage hike and a P30,000-signing bonus
for each of its members. The firm said that it can only provide a
P12-salary increase and a P12,000-bonus.
ULWU, on the other hand, was asking for the
reinstatement of the recently retrenched farmworkers, that
included Galang, its vice president, Ildefonso Pingul, and eight
other union officers.
SUGARCANE FIELD RAZED
Meanwhile, the management said that some 20
hectares of this estate’s sugarcane fields in Barangay Murcia in
Concepcion town was set on fire an hour before the mass actions
started last Saturday.
According to Monta, investigations carried out
by Nolcom have it that witnesses saw “several armed men,”
believed to be guerillas of the communist-led New People’s Army
(NPA), in the area before the fire broke out.
It is for this reason that the Nolcom acceded
to a request by the HLI for the reinforcement of policemen with
soldiers, even as Monta revealed that Dominguez also ordered the
deployment here of elements from the AFP’s Civil Disturbance
Unit.
The Nolcom spokesman further revealed that,
based on an initial assessments done by the Nolcom on the
situation here, the rallyists, especially the militants, were
“prepared for violent actions.”
DEMANDS ARE 'SIMPLE'
Meanwhile, Galang stated to the media here that
their demands from Mrs. Aquino’s family were “simple,” which
included their return to their previous jobs, including the
reinstatement of their land reform benefits under the CARP’s
stock option scheme, and for the resumption of ULWU’s CBA talks,
which were stalled with their being laid off.
Galang has vowed that the rallyists will
continue to lock up the sugar refinery here “indefinitely” if
their demands are not met.
He further disclosed that this Monday, hundreds
of farmworkers here will march to the downtown area of Tarlac City
to dramatize their protests. Their activity will coincide with the
scheduled transport strike in the province, including those in
Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Pangasinan, against the series
of oil price hikes.
CONFUSED
Meanwhile, it was gathered that the CATLU’s
membership was confused with what course their president, Ric
Ramos, was taking in the CBA deadlock and the mass actions.
For while Ramos has denied any hand in the
factory walkout from the boiler division, he was reportedly seen
in the picketline at the Gate 1 with Tarlac City councilor Abel
Ladera, a resident of Barangay Balete here who is also affiliated
with the Left-leaning party-list group, Bayan Muna.
Also supporting the protesters were activists
from the party-list group Anakpawis, and the radical groups,
Nagkakaisang Manggagawa ng Tarlac-Kilusang Mayo Uno (NMT-KMU),
Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Tarlac-Kilusang Magbubukid ng
Pilipinas (AMT-KMP), Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan-Tarlac),
League of Filipino Students (LFS) and Alyansa ng Nagkakaisang
Kabataan para sa Bayan (Anakbayan).
This, even as management revealed that it was
preparing to file charges against the CATLU members who joined the
mass action, saying that it was “illegal” because the union
did not conduct a “strike vote.”
SUGAR PRODUCTION AFFECTED
The sudden shut down of the sugar factory here,
the biggest in Luzon, came as sugarcane planters here in Tarlac,
Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and elsewhere in Central and Northern Luzon
were bringing their harvest to the refinery here for this year’s
milling season.
This, even as the HLI has been claiming to have
sustained operational losses amounting to P215.11 million in 2002
and P165.49 million last year.
This sugar estate has been long a hotbed of
agrarian unrest that dates back to the 1950s during the height of
the “Huk rebellion” waged by the old Partido Komunista
ng Pilipinas (PKP), the precursor of the NPA’s mother unit, the
underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).