Luisita farmworkers ready murder raps vs cops, soldiers
News HACIENDA LUISITA — The more than 5,000-strong United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) will be filing murder and frustrated murder charges against soldiers under the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) and elements of the Central Luzon regional police force for the Nov. 16 violent dispersal here that left at least 14 people dead and hundreds of others injured.

According to lawyer Nenita Mahinay, counsel for the ULWU, the recognized labor group of farmworkers here, to be included, too, in the charges will be the nine policemen earlier found to be positive for gunpowder burns.

None of the said lawmen, who were among the more than a thousand anti-riot contingent then, were from Tarlac. They were earlier identified by authorities as Senior Insp. Sabino Vengco and PO1 Christopher Villanueva, both of the Bataan police provincial office; P01s Noriel Marcelo, Michael Santiago and Joselito Ramos, all from Nueva Ecija; Jonnie Francia, Venancio Asuncion Jr. and Irwin Monreal, from Aurora; and PO2 Noel Velasco, of the police Regional Mobile Group-3 based in Camp Olivas, Pampanga.

Mahinay added that they are still collecting the names of the Nolcom soldiers, who were with the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion and the AFP’s Civil Disturbance Unit, similarly deputized by Labor Sec. Patricia Sto. Tomas to reinforce the police anti-riot force.

She said that they will also include the policemen and soldiers’ respective commanding officers, and those who were assigned as “commanders-on-the-ground,” in the charges.

As the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) ruled that the combined strike carried out by the ULWU and its sister-union, the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), that started last Nov. 6 was “illegal,” Sto. Tomas then ordered the dispersal of the picketline at the Gate 1 of the sugar refinery here.
Several skirmishes between policemen and the demonstrators already took place since then, but the most violent was last Nov. 16 when gunshots were fired at the strikers, allegedly by elements of the anti-riot contingent.

REMOVED?

But the management of the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI), the corporate farming firm where ULWU members are being regarded as “co-owners” by former President Corazon Aquino’s family under the stock distribution scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), claimed that Mahinay is no longer the counsel for the union.

On the basis of a resolution purportedly adopted by the ULWU’s board of directors, the activist lawyer was replaced last October by one Zoilo dela Cruz, who is said to be the president of the National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines (NACUSIP).

Mahinay’s “removal” as ULWU counsel came following the inclusion of Rene Galang and Ildefonso Pingul, the union’s respective president and vice president, and its eight other officers in the dismissal by the HLI of 327 farmworkers last Oct. 1.

Also on the basis of a resolution, Galang and his colleagues were replaced by a group in the ULWU led by a certain Ronaldo Alcantara.

But Galang’s group maintained that it was still the legitimate authority in the ULWU, since no election has been held for their replacement. As such, Galang added that Mahinay remains to be the union’s recognized counsel.

HLI’s decision to include Galang and his colleagues in the mass layoff came while the management and the union had just started holding this year’s round of collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

CLASS SUIT

Aside from charges of murder and frustrated murder, Mahinay said that the ULWU, along with the CATLU will similarly file a class suit against the government and Mrs. Aquino’s family on behalf of the victims of the dispersal.

A number of local officials in the province have already vowed support for the planned charges and the class suit, said Tarlac City councilor Abel Ladera, a resident of Barangay Balete here and a former employee at the Cojuangco-owned sugar mill.

This, as Ladera noted pronouncements coming from higher authorities and the Cojuangco family, particularly former Rep. Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. and his nephew, Tarlac second district Rep. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, that the violence was started by the strikers “indicate a looming white-wash in the investigations.”

For this, he urged the Senate and the Lower House, whose members have already vowed to look into the incident, as well as the “loopholes” in the CARP, to help the victims’ families, as well as the CATLU and ULWU, in “ferreting out the truth.”

Mahinay said that they have “a strong case,” as she pointed to video footages and still photos of the incident, as well as accounts by eyewitnesses, that it was the policemen and soldiers who were at the time “armed to the teeth.”

Both Galang and CATLU president, Ric Ramos, said that when the Army’s V-150 armored personnel carrier (APC) then failed to drive the strikers away from the CAT factory’s Gate 1, snipers positioned on a nearby sugarcane field and at the mill’s reservoir started shooting at the rallyists.

MISSING

As authorities maintained that only seven were killed in the dispersal due to gunshot wounds, Galang and Ramos, as well as the human rights group, Karapatan, said that by their own accounts, there were 14 casualties, which included two infants.

According to Karapatan-Tarlac’s spokesman, Emil Paragas, a fact-finding mission they conducted during the weekend revealed that “the number of those confirmed dead may still rise due to eyewitness accounts that a big number of dead bodies were carried into the sugar mill by the soldiers and policemen, but these disappeared for unknown reasons.”

Besides, Paragas said that they also found out that 39 people from the Visayas and Mindanao, who work as seasonal sacadas (sugarcane cutters) here, were “still unaccounted for.”

The said sacadas were being brought here by labor contractors identified as Boy Malig, Eduardo Inakay and Emmanuel Tobias.

Galang said that the actual number of sacadas here who came from southern parts of the country could not be determined, since they do not belong to either the ULWU or CATLU.

“It is only the people in the management who know their identities,” he added.

Posted on Monday, November 22 @ 11:12:02 HKT