By Jojo Robles
“It is important to note that both Cory Aquino and her son Noynoy supported the embattled President Arroyo right after the wiretapping stories broke. Cory urged Filipinos not to use extra-judicial means to remove their Chief Executive, while Noynoy (a Tarlac congressman at the time) voted in the House to prevent the playing of the wiretapped conversations.”
If Noynoy Aquino weren’t so blinded by hate (or so callowly exploiting what he feels is the mother lode of hatred that will make him president, take your pick), he would also call for the creation of a government commission to look into the festering problem that is Hacienda Luisita, if he wins. But wait, there was already a commission formed to do that six years ago – and still nothing has happened.
Only, as that recent excellent series on the troubled sugar plantation written by Stephanie Dychiu on the GMA Network Web site (www.gmanews.tv) pointed out, the work of the Luisita task force was apparently swept aside by the “Hello, Garci” wiretapping scandal in early 2005. The headline-hogging reports of President Arroyo directly calling an elections commissioner to secure votes for her election a year earlier elbowed out the previous big story of the November 2004 Luisita massacre, wherein soldiers and police opened fire on striking workers at the Cojuangco-Aquino plantation.
It is important to note that both Cory Aquino and her son Noynoy supported the embattled President Arroyo right after the wiretapping stories broke. Cory urged Filipinos not to use extra-judicial means to remove their Chief Executive, while Noynoy (a Tarlac congressman at the time) voted in the House to prevent the playing of the wiretapped conversations.
Yet, soon after the Department of Agrarian Reform’s Luisita task force completed its investigation and following a meeting in Malacañang between Cory and President Arroyo, the former President publicly called for the resignation of her successor in office. Amid rumors of a shouting match between the two women leaders that had nothing to do with the “Garci” tapes and everything to do with the task force’s report, according to Dychiu’s sources, Cory, Noynoy and even Kris (all of whom supported President Arroyo’s 2004 campaign against actor Fernando Poe Jr.), joined the anti-Arroyo opposition.
“The [Luisita] farm workers believe widespread condemnation of the involvement of the military in the massacre pressured the Arroyo government into taking action to absolve itself, causing the breakdown of its ties with the Cojuangco-Aquinos,” Dychiu wrote. “By August 2005, a special legal team was formed by the DAR to review the report submitted by Task Force Luisita in July 2005. On September 23, 2005, the team submitted its terminal report recommending the revocation of Luisita’s [stock distribution option] agreement [that allowed the Cojuangco-Aquino family to keep their lands under Cory’s land reform program].”
Like the “Hello, Garci” scandal and all the other supposedly anomalous deals that took place under the Arroyo administration, these events took place during the current and outgoing dispensation. And while the other allegedly crooked deals that Noynoy wants his PCGG-style commission to look into may have cost taxpayers a lot of money, the Luisita massacre cost the lives of the Aquinos’ own plantation workers.
If Noynoy really wants closure, why shouldn’t he want his family to finally clear the air about their sugar plantation – a plantation that sits on land that had been promised to its workers since taxpayers’ money was used to purchase it for his family during the time of President Ramon Magsaysay half a century ago? And if closure (and justice) in Luisita happens during Noynoy’s term, why not?
Ah, but closure is required only for political enemies, if Noynoy Aquino will have his way. And if Cory herself wasn’t able or willing to give closure and justice to the long-suffering workers of Luisita during her presidency, how can Noynoy be expected to do anything different? By: Jojo Robles
No comments:
Post a Comment