DAR confirms Haciendas' RoW overprice

By: Charlie Manalo
Source:The Daily Tribune

 

11/20/2009
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), through one of its officials, yesterday confirmed that an agency of the government paid an overprice involving the Right of Way (RoW) to Hacienda Luisita amounting to some P83 million.

This was admitted by the DAR representative during a hearing of the House committee on oversight that is investigating the Hacienda Luisita controversy.

Allies of Liberal Party standard bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino were in full force at the hearing, even when they were not members of the committee. Aquino earlier, reacting to the allegations of overpricing, had claimed there was no such overprice.

Aquino’s allies tried to stop the committee on oversight from investigating parallel issues in the Hacienda’s controversy which would link LP’s standard bearer to unethical and exploitative practices.

This move was made even as a DAR representative confirmed there was an overprice for the RoW the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA) paid the Cojuangco-Aquinos for the 83 hectares of sugar land used for the private interchange.

At the resumption of the panel hearing on the controversial Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway (SCTEX), Camarines Norte

Rep. Liwayway Vinzons-Chato (LP), citing political overtones, asked committee chairman Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez to put a halt to the discussion on the alleged overpricing of the (RoW) paid to the Cojuangco-Aquino controlled Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), the construction of a private interchange leading to Hacienda Luisita and the underpayment of dividends to the hacienda farm workers from the payment of the right of way as she claimed the panel was only conducting an inquiry on the delay of the completion of the SCTEX and the request for P6 billion supplemental budget for the project.

Suarez, however, reminded Chato that there is no limit to the agenda in the panel investigation as long as it is related to the subject being discussed and if any government money was involved in the project.
“There is a possibility we cannot avoid political overtones in our investigation but the fact remains that we are the oversight committee and that since government money was spent for this project, we have to push through with our investigation and see to it that the government money was properly disposed of,” said Suarez.

Last week, Chato was the only Aquino supporter on hand at the hearing. Yesterday, aside from Chato, Aquino allies also present were Quezon Rep. Erin Tañada, Cavite Rep. Emilio Abaya, both of LP, Akbayan Rep. Riza Hontiveros and 1-UTAK Rep. Vigor Mendoza.
Hontiveros who claims to be cause-oriented, is included in Aquino’s senatorial line-up while Mendoza reportedly was a former lawyer of HLI.
Abaya, Hontiveros and Mendoza are not members of the panel.
But these principles of the LP are apparently not being followed by the LP and its members, as they moved to shield Aquino from serious charges of overpricing of the SCTEX, the overpriced RoW payment to the hacienda, as well as the P173 million private interchange that was funded by government, for the private use of the Aquino-Cojuangcos.

At the same hearing, DAR Undersecretary Renato Herrera confirmed that the prevailing zonal value of sugar lands is P15 to P17 per square meter at the most, which puts the P100 per square meter BCDA paid HLI grossly overpriced.
We rely on Land Bank for land valuation. But based on our own data, sugarcane lands are worth about P150,000 to P170,000 per hectare or P15 to 17 per square meter,” Herrera told the panel.
Lawyer Regina Lapuz, however, said they based their recommendation from the DBP report.
The panel also tried to dig deeper into the reason Hacienda Luisita farm workers were given a measly P0.50 to P1 dividend out of the P84 million paid out by government for the RoW when farm workers own 33. 29 percent shares of the HLI, which Chato issue tried to block but failed to stop.
“The issue of the dividend is an internal matter between the farm workers and the HLI management and is not germane to the subject of the resolution for which the hearing was called,” Chato told Suarez.
But Suarez told Chato the issue of the dividends paid to the farm workers is also their business as government money was used in paying the RoW to HLI.
HLI legal counsel Tony Ligon tried to justify the P050 to P1 peso dividend to the farmers saying the rate of dividend for the farm workers, pegged at 3 percent of the farm land’s net income, is contained in the provisions of the memorandum of agreement (MoA) which established the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) for the farm workers.
Ligon added that more than P70 from the RoW payment will be used to pay the accounts payables incurred by the corporation.
But the farm workers, represented by United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) president Lito Bais, retorted that the 3 percent dividend provided for in the MoA is only applicable to production share and that should not apply to the payment to the RoW as it is a form of sales, thus, they should have received no less than P27 million from the P84 million RoW.
Cavite Rep. Crispin Remulla for his part, questioned the BCDA on why the Hacienda Luisita interchange was included when there were originally only four interchanges in the original SCTEX feasibility study.
With the construction of the Hacienda Luisita interchange, there are now six interchanges in the Clark to Tarlac portion of SCTEX, which the Cavite solon said was originally supposed to have passed through Capaz, Tarlac and not through Hacienda Luisita.
While the BCDA contends that the original plan already included the Hacienda Luisita interchange, no one among the National Economic Development Authority (Neda), the agency which has in its possession the original master plan of the ambitious road project, was present.
Earlier, Remulla accused the family of the LP presidential bet, saying the Aquin-Cojuangco family benefited from the P33-billion project as Hacienda Luisita was awarded with P170-million worth of interchange without paying a single centavo.
“They (Aquino-Cojuangcos) did not shell out any money for the interchange. Others with private lands who request for an interchange have to pay. Hacienda did not pay, The family even made a lot of money in the Right of Way. Others even donate part of their land just to have an interchange,” Remulla said.
He said the Aquino family used its political connections to have the SCTEX Tarlac exit built inside Hacienda Luisita in 2004.
He noted that the SCTEX has 12 exit points. “Eleven of the 12 interchanges are connected to public roads. Only one exit leads to a private property. That is in Hacienda Luisita.”

Meanwhile, Anakpawis Rep. Joel Maglunsod, who was also present at the hearing, said the Luisita land overpricing is another possible grand scam due to greed and attempt to cheat the real owners of Hacienda Luisita lands, as the Luisita management admitted that P80 million of the sales proceeds went to Hacienda Luisita Inc., and P3.9 million went to another Cojuangco - Aquino owned corporation, the Tarlac Development Corporation (Tadeco).

Luisita farmworkers claimed some of them received only P204 to 328 as share in the proceeds of the sale as many of them received only .50 to P1 as revealed by Bais.

Bais said farmworkers were not even informed or consulted that portions of the SCTEX interchange will pass Hacienda Luisita.

Maglunsod said, “the truth on the SCTEX-Luisita land overpricing issue must be unearthed. Farmer-beneficiaries have every right to know the details of this alleged sweetheart deal between the Arroyo government and the Cojuangcos. Farm workers own the lands, in fact, they are the only rightful landowners of Hacienda Luisita.”

Dismissing comments of several representatives that the SCTEX issue should not be “politicized,” Maglunsod said “the subject of SCTEX spawns from the issue of land ownership of Hacienda Luisita, a valid political issue as far as Anakpawis and Luisita farmers and workers are concerned.”

“Land ownership, land distribution and agrarian reform are legitimate political issues. Filipino farmers are waging a political fight against landlessness and exploitation for more than a century now. In the case of Luisita, the Cojuangco family and Hacienda Luisita Inc. duped the farmers to enter the SDO scheme to evade land distribution.
“The aggrieved parties on the SCTEX-Luisita land scam are the 6,000 farm workers of Luisita who own 33 percent of the 4,915 has. of Luisita lands, not the management and the Cojuangcos who have benefited much from Hacienda Luisita and the hard labor of farm workers in the sugar estate.”
The Anakpawis solon also supported the conduct of an onsite investigation of the P33 billion SCTEX interchange