Sham deal won’t end conflict in HLI — group
By Charlie V. Manalo 08/08/2010 The compromise agreement signed by the Cojuangco-Aquino family of President Aquino and what a farmers group said were surrogates of the family posing as leaders of the farm workers on Hacienda Luisita the other day will not end the conflict in the vast sugar estate, Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano said yesterday. Mariano said the official of the Hacienda Luisita farmworkers union who signed the agreement with the Cojuangcos is a puppet of the hacienda owners. “This compromise is a grand deception by the Cojuangco-Aquinos of farmers and the entire nation. It exposes the greedy character of the President’s relatives,” said Mariano. “It will not end the conflict in the Hacienda,” Mariano said adding: “Instead, this will add fuel to the conflagration of peasant resistance in Tarlac.” Reports also quoted President Aquino saying that what is going on in Luisita is “an intra-corporate dispute.” “We call on the Supreme Court to junk this sham deal. The Luisita dispute is not simply about intra-corporate dispute as claimed and signaled by the landlord-President to the court. This is about agrarian reform, about social justice to Luisita farmers tied in more than half a century of bondage at the hands of the Cojuangco feudal lords,” said Mariano. He said that “the President’s blessing to his cousins was instrumental in retaining the stock distribution option scheme and striking another highly disadvantageous deal against farmers.” Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20100808hed3.html |
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