The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the gathering of documents which would pave the way for the payment of just compensation to the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) owners whose 4,915 hectares of sugarcane plantation in Tarlac were distributed to 6,296 farm worker beneficiaries (FWBs).
Based on its July 5, 2011 decision, the SC directed HLI owners to turn over the land directly to the FWBs who will pay just compensation based on the 1989 land valuation of the property.
The 2011 ruling became final and executory on April 24, 2012 in a resolution written by then Associate Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., now Marinduque governor.
In a 20-page resolution that was made public on April 26, 2021 and written by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul B. Inting, the SC directed the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the register of deeds to create a task force “for purposes of completing and collating the documentation required to validate the homelot awards.”
The SC directed the DAR to determine the just compensation to HLI owners upon completion of the validation procedures.
It also directed the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to release the payment for just compensation according to DAR’s validation process with the funds sourced from the Agrarian Reform Fund (ARF) of DAR.
HLI owners had earlier claimed that they did not have the original copies of the transfer documents submitted to the register of deeds or given to the FWBs. The documents were needed for the completion of the validation process.
“Significantly, the completion of the DAR's validation procedures is a pre-condition to the payment of just compensation. Thus, it is in HLI's best interest to fully cooperate with the DAR which includes providing the necessary documents to the best of their ability. It is difficult to believe that HLI no longer possesses the originals/certified true copies of these documents,” the SC said.
“Certainly, as the transferor in the disposition of homelots, it must have retained copies of the documents evidencing those transfers,” it said.
But the SC recognized the difficulty of producing the records due to the passage of time. Thus, it directed the creation of a task force to retrieve all the records.
In the same resolution, the SC denied with finality the motion to reconsider the April 24, 2018 resolution filed by Noel Mallari of the Alyansa ng mga Mangagawang Bukid ng Hacienda Luisita (Ambala) and Winsor Andaya of the HLI Supervisory Group.
“The Court cannot allow the parties to prolong these proceedings by filing motion after motion, only to perpetually deflect/delay obligation,” the SC stressed.
With the finality of the 2011 decision in 2012, HLI owners -- the family and relatives of former President Benigno S. Aquino III – had assured their “full cooperation in the expeditious completion of the process” of distributing the 4,915 hectares of land to farmer beneficiaries as ordered by the SC.
In it 2012 statement, HLI said that “the Cojuangco family expresses its full confidence that the SC decision regarding the fate of Hacienda Luisita is a just resolution for all parties concerned.”
HLI said that “the Hacienda be subjected to land reform, and as the Supreme Court (SC) recently declared to land distribution, is a verdict the Cojuangco family embraces and should be a glowing legacy for the late former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.”
“It cannot be argued that Mrs. Aquino made decisive move to place Hacienda Luisita in the 1980s under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) although the preference of farmer-beneficiaries for stock distribution option prevailed in at least three referendums over land distribution,” it stressed.
“Now that the High Court maintains that land distribution is the only resolution, the Cojuangco family guarantees its full cooperation in the expeditious completion of this process and put all other issues to rest,” it pointed out.