Still no peaceful way out of Luisita unrest
News HACIENDA LUISITA — Rallyists here have prepared to meet anti-riot policemen anew in skirmishes shortly after noontime Tuesday after receiving word from their leaders who went to Manila that talks with two prominent members of the Cojuangco clan bogged down.

This, even as 12 Army trucks loaded with Army soldiers and a V-150 armored personnel carrier were seen to have entered the Alto compound here, where members of former President Corazon Aquino’s family live, around 11:30 a.m., reinforcing about the about 1,000 police anti-riot contingent.

Police authorities put on hold on Tuesday morning plans to disperse the picket of more than 6,000 protesters at the Gate 1 of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) refinery as former Tarlac Rep. Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. and his nephew, Tarlac second district Rep. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, held in Manila “backdoor” talks with Ricardo Ramos and Rene Galang, respective presidents of the CAT Labor Union (CATLU) and the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU).

The informal negotiations, meant to peacefully resolve the mass actions that shut down the operations of Luzon’s biggest sugar mill, had for its “intermediaries” sectoral Rep. Satur Ocampo, of the radical party-list group Bayan Muna, and activist Tarlac City councilor Abel Ladera.

It was learned that both sides in the talks took “hard line” stands, with Peping and Noynoy asking Ramos and Galang to first dismantle the picketline in order for the CAT to resume operations before formal negotiations are held, but the union leaders insisted otherwise.

It was last Nov. 6 when the protest actions here commenced.

CATLU was in a deadlock in its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks with management, as it was demanding a P100 salary increase and a P30,000 signing bonus for each of its members. The CAT maintained that it can only provide a P12 wage hike and a P12,000 bonus

ULWU, on the other hand, was demanding for the reinstatement of 327 farmworkers laid off by the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) last Oct. 1, even as among those dismissed were Galang, its vice president, Ildefonso Pingul, and eight other union officers.

The inclusion of the ULWU officers in the mass retrenchment came even as the union had then just started holding CBA talks with the HLI, the corporate farming firm established in the late 1980s under the stock scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) where the more than 5,000 farmworkers here are also being regarded as the Cojuangcos’ “co-owners.”

Several “backdoor” talks were already actually held between members of the Cojuangco family and the rally leaders since last Thursday, delaying the implementation by the police of Labor Sec. Patricia Sto. Tomas’ order for the protesting CATLU members to return to work, and for the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to take over the operations of the sugar mill here.

Tuesday’s round of talks was the last to bog down again.

At least three instances of violent confrontations already took place between the police and the protesters.

The first was in the early evening of Nov. 6, followed by another one before the break of dawn the following day.

Before noontime Monday, scores were again hurt, including Ramos and Galang, as well as two policemen, when more than 500 personnel of the police anti-riot force engaged the rallyists in a 30-minute clash.

The Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom), further tagged guerillas of the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) of burning sugarcane fields in Barangay Murcia in Concepcion town, and Barangay Texas, Tarlac City, two of the 10 villages that are within this 6,000-hectare sugar estate.

The fire in Barangay Murcia occurred about an hour before the protest activities here commenced at noontime last Nov. 6. The one in Barangay Texas started while Bayan Muna’s Ocampo was delivering a speech before rallyists here at around 3 p.m. last Monday.

The Nolcom even blamed the NPA for the explosion of a transformer of the National Power Corp. (NPC) in Barangay Buenavista here at around 3 a.m. Monday, which caused an about 10-hour power failure throughout the province of Tarlac.

It is not yet clear at what exact time will the police try to dismantle again the picketline at the refinery, but it was found out that several policemen from Olongapo City also already arrived here on orders by Chief Supt. Quirino dela Torre, police regional director for Central Luzon.

As the tension here continued to mount again, political leaders in the province, particularly Gov. Jose Yap and Tarlac City Mayor Genaro Mendoza, renewed their appeal for both the Cojuangco family and the union leaders to exhaust all means to peacefully settle the labor dispute.

Management claimed that it was losing about P5 million a day due to the labor lockout, even as also affected are Central and Northern Luzon’s sugar planters and their employees.

Being Luzon’s biggest sugar refinery, the CAT has the capability of milling more than 7,000 tons of sugarcane in a day.

The nearest sugar refinery in Luzon that can mill large volumes of sugarcane is the Central Azucarera de Don Pedro, which is owned by the Roxas family in Batangas, which is in Southern Luzon.

There are other sugar mills in Pampanga, but these are small and could hardly accommodate all the sugarcane harvests in Central and Northern Luzon.

Posted on Tuesday, November 16 @ 13:51:47 HKT