SC to hear oral arguments on HLI conflict By Benjamin B. Pulta 08/18/2010

SC to hear oral arguments on HLI conflict

By Benjamin B. Pulta 08/18/2010 The Supreme Court will hear today oral arguments on the Hacienda Luisita dispute, including the compromise agreement between farm workers and the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) owned by Aquino-Cojuangco family of President Aquino that farmers groups had described as a pre-emptive move on a pending case with the high court to nullify the stock distribution option (SDO) scheme based on the argument it was a circumvention of land distribution required under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). In guidelines issued by the Court en banc yesterday the tribunal required the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) and the Secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform to comment within a period of 10 days on the motion of HLI seeking the Court’s approval of the August 6 compromise agreement that the management signed with several groups of farmers working in the sugar plantation.  HLI was required by the Court to file its reply within 10 days on the Comment-Opposition filed by the respondent farmers’ group, Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Hacienda Luisita (Ambala) asking the SC to expunge from the records the compromise agreement. HLI, meanwhile, issued a press statement saying more farm worker beneficiaries of HLI continue to sign the compromise settlement that provided them the choice to either choose the SDO or land distribution. As of Aug. 16, the final result of the census which started Aug. 6, revealed that 80 percent of the 10,502 number of farmworker-shareholders signed the compromise agreement and out of the 80 percent, 93.95 percent voted for SDO, which is contained in the memorandum of agreement of 1989, while 6.05 percent voted for land distribution, according to HLI.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100818hed4.html

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