http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20100204hed1.html
Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino does not come to the presidential race with clean hands, as they have been bloodied by two massacres: The Hacienda Luisita massacre of the striking farmers and the “massacre” of the original Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTex) project, shepherding its overprice while he and his family benefited from the project.
Rep. Crispin “Boying” Remulla, a critic of Aquino, bared at a press conference yesterday that two separate committees of both the Senate and the House established the fact that Noynoy Aquino used his influence as a legislator and served as the proponent of the SCTex project which directly benefited his family’s Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac.
“The congressional hearings elicited the fact that Noynoy used his influence as a legislator not only to push the SCTex project, but specifically also the interconnection of Hacienda Luisita to it, at a stupendous cost to government and taxpayers.
“The net effect of Noynoy’s machination is that from its original cost of P18.7 billion in 1999, the SCTex project cost was adjusted from P18.7 billion in 2003, to P21 billion in 2004 and, by the time it got finished, the cost ballooned to a whopping P32.808 billion, or double the original price.”
At that time, the Aquinos, mother and son, were staunch allies and defenders of President Arroyo.
“Noynoy made sure he was present in most meetings related to the construction of SCTex. To add insult to injury and to show their disdain for the congressional committees investigating the SCTex scandal, Noynoy and the Cojuangcos ordered Luisita’s security men to bar congressmen from conducting an ocular inspection of the HLI road interchange.”
“The government funded the P170-M project, but it could not even have its representatives visit the site. Such was the arrogance of the Cojuangcos.He said that Noynoy’s meddling in the project caused its original route to be diverted to pass through Luisita unnecessarily and without any other motive but to serve the interest of the Cojuangcos.
As Remulla likened the Hacienda Luisita interchange of the SCTex project to that of the bloody Mendiola and the Hacienda farmers’ massacres, he accused Aquino of “having blood in his hands” for his complicity in the twin massacres, adding another charge that he and his family’s five-decade long and often violent oppression of farmers in the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, blaming these on their greed for power and money.
In a press briefing, Remulla said that contrary to belief that the Luisita Massacre was triggered by the heated tension between the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) management and the farm workers after the latter went into strike in November 2004, the killing was actually an incident just waiting to happen.
“Nothing happens by mere circumstance. Nothing happens by mere incidence,” said Remulla. “After the value of the Hacienda shot up with the construction of the Luisita interchange of the SCTex, the massacre became inevitable and was just waiting to happen as the Cojuangco-Aquinos became more desperate not to let go of their property now valued at billions of pesos.”
Remulla also chided Noynoy over his long-standing silence on the Luisita Massacre. “As a senator and as a three-term congressman, Noynoy had not raised a howl, not even a whimper, when seven farmers demanding the return of their land from the Cojuangcos were murdered right at the gate of Luisita on Nov. 16, 2004. Noynoy should put to memory the names of these farmers because it was their blood which had been sacrificed at the altar of his family’s greed.”
Remulla added that Noynoy will also be haunted by the spate of extra-judicial killings that followed the Luisita massacre, killings which the Cavite solon were as ghastly as the Mendiola Massacre of 1987 under the presidency of Noynoyfs late mother Cory Aquino.
“If you would look at the history of Hacienda Luisita, the Cojuangco patriarch acquired the property in 1957 from a loan from the GSIS with the assurance that the property would be distributed to the farmworkers after 10 years. But four years later, the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino borrowed money to have the Hacienda modernized. that early, it was very evident they (Aquino-Cojuangcos) didn’t want to distribute the property to the farmworkers,” said Remulla.
“How about President (Cory) Aquino’s men withdrawing in 1989 the case filed by government in 1980 to force the Cojuangcos to return Luisita to its rightful owners, the farmers?”
Remulla said the list of “crimes against people” pinned on both the Aquinos and Cojuangcos goes on and on.
“There’s the stock distribution option (SDO) which was used by the Cory administration to exempt Luisita from land reform. This SDO is at the very root of the farmers’ fight against Noynoy’s family.”
After Cory Aquino assumed power in 1986, Remulla said she made sure the more than 6,000 hectares would not be subjected to agrarian reform when she issued a proclamation giving options to big landholders to submit their property to stock distribution option (SDO).
The late president also withdrew the government’s case against HLI which would have subjected the Hacienda to agrarian reform then.
In 2005, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) rescinded the SDO saying it was against the interest of the farmers. This was further upheld by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Commission (PARC), which ordered HLI to immediately distribute the property to the farmer-beneficiaries.
However, the Cojuangco-Aquino controlled HLI was able to acquire a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court (SC).
“At a very conservative estimate, Hacienda Luisita is now worth P60 billion. And that is enough reason the Cojuangco-Aquinos would resort to everything even violence just so that Hacienda Luisita would not be subjected to agrarian reform,” said Remulla.
“Didn’t Senator Noynoy abstain from the Senate voting on the CARP Extension with Reforms (CARPER) because it excluded SDO?”
Remulla said he dubbed the SCTex scandal as a ‘massacre’ figuratively and literally because it involves slowly murdering the farmers of Luisita by paying them starvation wages, limiting their workdays and the area of the land they till.
“SCTex is a massacre as horrible as the Luisita, Mendiola and Maguindanao killings because it also involves the raiding of public funds, a kind of murder that is most foul. How can Noynoy claim he is against corruption when he cannot even stand up to his powerful uncles and the shadowy members of Kamag-anak Incorporated?
“How can Noynoy brush aside the fact that the Cojuangco-controlled HLI and Tadeco made a killing of P83 million as right-of-way payment for the SCTEX project that affected Luisita? What distorted sense of justice does Noynoy posses when out of the P83 million, each of the Luisita farmers received a measly One Peso as share from the proceeds of the sale?”
Further, Remulla asked: “How come Noynoy is so quiet on the misuse of P170 million of taxpayers’ money to build the SCTex interchange linking Luisita, when it serves no other purpose than to serve the businesses of the Cojuangcos?”
The Cavite solon emphasized that before Noynoy promises to lift Filipinos from poverty, he “should first confront his elders for giving Luisita farmers starvation wages, which in 2003 stood at P18 a day for seasonal workers and P9 a day for casuals, after deductions.
“Noynoy is also answerable for his family’s move to reclassify 3,290 out of Luisita’s 4,915 hectares from agricultural to commercial, industrial and residential, which the Sangguniang Bayan of Tarlac approved in 1995 during the tenure as governor of Margarita “Tingting” Cojuangco, his aunt,
A master plan commissioned in 1998 by Luisita Realty Corp., a subsidiary of Jose Cojuangco & Sons, showed that the Cojuangcos’ long-term intention is to convert the hacienda into a business and residential hub, with no areas left for agricultural.
“Since Noynoy is so enamored with the purported legacy of his family, he should dig a little deeper to unearth their long-closeted skeletons,” said Remulla.
“But if he cannot control his family, the decision of his family on this very unpopular issue hounding them, then he has no right to run for public office which would give him control over the entire nation!”
Remulla said that as chairman of the congressional committee that investigated in 2005 the SCTex scandal, he personally knows the falsity of Noynoy’s claim that the P83M paid them for the SCTex road right of way was above board.
“The zonal valuation for farm land in Tarlac was only P8 per square meter, yet Noynoy’s family was paid P100 per square meter. Noynoy says the price was approved by the BCDA as per the valuation of the Development Bank of the Philippines. But who is Noynoy fooling? The BCDA approved a DBP valuation which, to start, was based on a BCDA recommendation. There was clearly collusion in this highway robbery.”
On top of this, HLI, or the Cojuangcos at least, also benefitted immensely from the P170-million road interchange which was built at government’s expense. The interchange, which has three ramps instead of just one if (which should be the case), all but made apparent that it was meant to serve the industrial estates of the Cojuangcos in the converted hacienda, he pointed out.The overpricing was confirmed by no less than the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) during a congressional hearing.
The best thing for this is to file all these accusations to the proper court of laws and not in the media for mileage.
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