ANL
3rd
Quarter Issue 2014
E D I T O R I A L
Laughing stock of the
world!
“What’s happening to our country, General?” was the dire query thrown at
Quezon City police chief General Tomas Karingal by former Vice-President
Emmanuel Pelaez who was ambushed in broad-day light by unknown armed men on a
busy city street during the dark days of martial rule. Not too long after,
Karingal himself was gunned down and killed at a Quezon City restobar by
unknown men surmised to be guerilla operatives of the now-defunct Alex Boncayao
Brigade of the New People’s Army.
Today might not be as
critical as those days leading to the ouster of the infamous dictator Marcos
when urban guerilla warfare was employed by the NPA in trying to hurt the
dictatorship and bring the despotic regime down to its knees. It was a war
getting to be an accepted fact by a martial law-weary nation languishing under
a most hated “conjugal dictatorship” glued for too long at the seat of power,
force and greed.
Now, we swear: Never again
to martial law! Now, we ask: What have
we got today?
Yep, Mr. Juan Dela Cruz! We
have BS Aquino lll and his chaotic leadership and governance. We have a
President with a questionable character—one who coveted the presidency only because he is the
son of Ninoy and Cory who were overly idolized as icons and heroes which is
largely untrue. This BS Aquino as a former congressman and senator is no
achiever. Nothing personal but the bohemian guy is no marrying type; only a
penchant for dating women including broadcaster Korina Sanchez who later
married DILG Secretary Mar Roxas; Valenzuela
City Councilor and TV personality Shalani Soledad who eventually married
Congressman Roman Romulo; and a handful more.
Aside from being a
chain-smoking jolly “pistolero”, the guy is reported to be a computer game
aficionado, thus tying him down late in some appointments. With nary a touch
for diplomatic savvy, the man is likewise known to be pique and blame-game goat
with only Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as favorite punching bag for the woes he
can’t seem to tackle.
Exactly six months last
May since storm Haiyan flattened Tacloban City but not a rough draft of a master
plan has been drawn up to address the rehabilitation of affected towns and
cities of Leyte and Samar provinces. Turning a bitter page November this year,
Haiyan’s victims have yet to see any significant progress in the rehabilitation
efforts of government now spanning almost a year.
We have a Supreme Court
littered with P-Noy’s appointees. A supreme court that recalled the
already-approved Reproductive Health Law. A high court that approved the
Anti-Cyber Crime Law with the obsolete thing—“libel”—Incorporated in it as a
major offense. A supreme court that declared DAP [disbursement acceleration
program] unconstitutional but conveniently exculpating the President of any
culpability in DAP’s illegal cashing out of hundreds of billions of pesos in all
three years that criminal hands sapped the nation’s coffers.
We have a Philippine
Congress cohabited by morons and kleptomaniacs. And yes, many of them, like
P-Noy himself, are good at mimicking to be clean and innocent as to the
identity of a lady scammer now known infamously as the pork barrel queen, Janet
Lim-Napoles, who turned out to be their “confidential friend” after all. We
have a Congress that simply refuse to act on the proposed bills on divorce and
freedom of information for fear that when both bills be passed into law shall
ram through their faces and narrow personal and malicious interests. We have a
Congress that accepts bribes in the billions derived from the President’s pork
barrel DAP as payback in impeaching a Chief Justice. Sadly, we have a docile
Congress with the Chief Executive right at the steering wheel.
We have a kingdom called
the Executive Branch with the “Pork Barrel King” reigning over the “snakepit” called Malacanang
Palace inhabited not by snakes but by the larger kind known in local tongue as “buwaya” [crocs]. This snakepit is a unique one in that
sordid notes in history are manufactured here. It receives in its royal sala
the kind of bigtime criminal like Napoles surrendering to no other than the
highest palace occupant who promptly escorted the fugitive lady to her prison
cell in a nearby police camp with a cabinet buddy in tow. A sham to protocol
and statesmanship!
We have an Executive
Branch utterly insensitive to the well-being of the poor beneficiaries of public
hospitals such as the Philippine Orthopedic Hospital and the Philippine
Children’s Medical Center blindly ceded to big private corporations whose prime
business is to amass huge profit, not for charity or cheaper health care for
the indigents as supposed to be the duty of a responsible government.
We have a defiant
Executive Branch audaciously demanding explanation from the Supreme Court—a
co-equal branch of government—as to the merit and/or logic of the latter’s
verdict on the DAP as illegal being unconstitutional in most parts. “We
implemented DAP and used its funds in good faith,” rationalizes the apparently “ill-advised”
[or ill-minded?] palace bigwig and his minions. Or, is
it simply testing the waters and go away with it?
You knew all the while,
Mr. BS Aquino, that the DAP is
ill-intent on your part having filed a bill when you were a senator during
Gloria Arroyo’s term opposing such an evil scheme of squeezing blood from the peoples’
pocket. How dare you forget this glaring fact in your argument with and in your
bullying the country’s highest court?! Is it because you’re squeezing payback
from your appointee-justices up there? Is it because you hold the neck of the
entire Congress with your cash-dangling hands duping them to intervene for and
in your behalf?
How dare you threaten the
Supreme Court—the country’s ultimate arbiter of laws—with a head-on collision
with your Executive branch in defense of something illegal as the DAP?! Are you throwing this country into chaos? Suck
it, bully-boy!
And finally, we have this
bagman-collector Janet Lim-Napoles who brought forth a historic scandal of
global proportion plunging into mud this nation once reduced to being a “banana
republic” under martial law.
“Bagman-collector”? And for
whom?
It’s a well-planned
telenovela-racket starring Napoles and a cast of hundreds propping her up by
the sidelines—politicians and bureaucrats crazed and blinded by hundreds of
millions in fat commissions [“pork barrel” kickbacks!] with not a drop of
sweat. Napoles’ backers [and mentors like Budget Secretary Butch Abad] coached
her into putting up fake non-government organizations where the priority
development assistance funds [PDAF] of her politician-patrons are funneled and secured in a sweetheart deal
of 70-30 percentage sharing—the bigger end going to the politico-backer and the
smaller amount for Napoles.
Silly-funny, dude! But there
goes the easy loot of “funds” in the Philippines. Shenanigans end up laughing
their way to the bank ever cocky and ritzy.
So is a nation coming to
terms with the very misfortune of plunging itself back to being a stinking
banana republic—the laughing stock of the world.
[editorial board, asingan newsline, july 2014]
N E W S L I N E
DAP used to compensate Aquino kin at Luisita
Sunday, 20 July 2014
The Department of Agrarian Reform [DAR] had
confirmed that P5.4 billion of the controversial Disbursement Acceleration
Program [DAP] was released to the DAR which was used as landowners’
compensation, including those for the relatives of President Aquino for
Hacienda Luisita land.
Based on the list of DAP projects released by
Malacañang, the DAR received P5.4 billion for landowners compensation and
another P1.29 billion for agrarian reform communities project 2. In a statement released to the media July 17,
DAR admitted that the funds from the DAP were used to compensate over 4,000
landowners, including those of Hacienda Luisita.
The DAR said that from 2011 to June 2014, Landbank
disbursed P4.052 billion representing the cash portion of landowners
compensation to more than 4,000 landowners whose lands were distributed to
farmer-beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.
The DAR paid the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. [HLI] a
total of P471.50 million broken down as follows: P304.03 million as the actual
cost of land and an additional P167.47 million as interest. The amount is 11.6
percent of the P4.052 billion paid to more than 4,000 landowners.
According to the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
[UMA], the amount paid to Hacienda Luisita was equivalent to P100,000 per
hectare or “double the value initially prescribed by the April 24, 2012 Supreme
Court decision on Hacienda Luisita.”
In its final ruling, the high court maintained that
the date of reckoning for land valuation in Hacienda Luisita shall be November
21, 1989, the same date that the stock distribution option [SDO] in Hacienda
Luisita was approved. The SDO is one of the non-land transfer schemes allowed
under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. To evade actual distribution
of the land, the Cojuangco-Aquinos during the administration of the late
president Corazon Aquino, the current president’s mother, gave farm workers
shares of stocks instead of land.
According to Ambala’s lawyer Jobert Pahilga, the
1989 valuation should be pegged at P40,000 per hectare, the same valuation
given by the Cojuangco-Aquinos when they computed the shares of stocks of farm
workers under the SDO. The SC affirmed that the valuation should be based
on1989 prices. The UMA said the Cojuangco-Aquinos were overpaid by as much as
P167 million.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes,
however, claimed that although an amount was indicated for landowners
compensation in the list of DAP-Identified Projects, the funding was included
only because it was part of the disbursement strategy and it only required the
release of cash and not an additional funding landowners compensation already
has an appropriation for fiscal years 2010 and 2011.
The fact that this was included in the DBM list,
however, indicated that the cash released was from the DAP.
De los Reyes said in 2010 and 2011, Congress
appropriated a budget of P3.966 billion for each of these years for landowners
compensation but no cash was immediately released to the Landbank. “In
September 2011, the DAR endorsed the request of the Landbank for the cash
release to the Landbank of P7.932 billion representing the total appropriation
for landowners’ compensation for 2010 and 2011. This request was prompted by
the prospect of the depletion of the available cash of the Agrarian Reform Fund
in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the case of Apo Fruits Corporation
and Hijo Plantation, Inc. vs. Land Bank of the Philippines in April 2011. The
Supreme Court had ordered the Landbank to pay Apo-Hijo not only the actual
valuation for land DAR acquired for distribution but also a penalty interest
from the time the DAR acquired the landholding in December 9, 1996 until the
Landbank paid the amount on May 9, 2008,” he said.
De los Reyes said that in October 2011, a Notice of
Cash Allocation [NCA] for P7.932 billion corresponding to appropriations in the
General Appropriations Act of both 2010 and 2011 was released to the Landbank.
A part of this amount, P5.4 billion, was through the DAP “as part of the
disbursement strategy.”
“I wish to emphasize that this P5.432 billion was
not an augmentation of the fund for Landowners Compensation, the entire P7.932
billion corresponds to the 2010 and 2011 appropriation for Landowners
Compensation in the GAA for those years,” he added.
From 2011 to June 2014, Landbank disbursed P4.052
billion representing the cash portion of Landowners Compensation to more than
4,000 landowners whose lands were distributed to farmer-beneficiaries of the
agrarian reform program.
“The landowners of Apo Fruits-Hijo Plantation and
of Hacienda Luisita are but two of the more than 4,000 landowners paid by the
Landbank,” according to the DAR statement.
De los Reyes branded as baseless and untrue the
accusations that DAP was released to the Landbank in order to primarily pay for
Hacienda Luisita lands saying the P7.932 billion released to the Landbank was
the total of the 2010 and 2011 budget for landowners compensation approved by
Congress and that it was used to pay not only Hacienda Luisita, Inc. but more
than 4,000 landowners.
“President Aquino himself has allocated billions of
pesos from his unconstitutional DAP for landlord compensation and for alleged
bribery to secure the impeachment of Chief Justice Corona after the SC
promulgated its final and executory decision on Hacienda Luisita,” the UMA in
its 2013 fact-finding report.
In 2012, the Supreme Court [SC] under then Chief
Justice Renato Corona released a final and executory decision to implement land
distribution in Hacienda Luisita. According to reports, billions of pesos from
the DAP were used by Aquino to bribe legilators to impeach and convict Corona,
as retribution for the landmark Luisita ruling.
“The Cojuangco-Aquinos are using power and
influence to sabotage the SC decision. All government agencies such as the
Department of Agrarian Reform [DAR], the military, police, and local courts in
Tarlac are directly taking orders from the Cojuangcos to coerce and
disenfranchise supposed land reform beneficiaries in Hacienda Luisita,” said
Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita [Ambala] chairman Florida
Sibayan said.
Aside from the DAP, a new disbursement mechanism by
the Aquino-Abad tandem is now believed to be actively used to fund the
Cojuangco-Aquino’s illicit sugarcane “aryendo”
[lease agreement] victimizing thousands of Luisita beneficiaries in the guise
of “land reform support services” such as block-farming. Under the 2013
Grassroots Participatory Budgeting [GPB] program, otherwise known as Bottom-Up
Budgeting [BuB], P476 million was released to the DAR for agrarian reform
beneficiaries’ support services.
Sibayan said that loyal Cojuangco agents such as
Arsenio Valentino, a former supervisor of the Hacienda Luisita now heads the
DAR’s Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Organizations [ARBO] and can easily access
these “support service funds.” The funds are used to entice cash-strapped
farmer beneficiaries to enter unfair lease agreements known as the aryendo leading to the wholesale disqualification of
beneficiaries and the reconcentration of the sugar estate back to
Cojuangco-Aquino control.
“The DAR says that they need enough proof to stop
the aryendo in Hacienda Luisita, but the most notorious of
“aryendadors” are currently in their
employ. We will not be surprised if the DAR takes action on the aryendo – not to pin down these
Cojuangco agents – but to lay the blame on the thousands of Hacienda Luisita
farmworkers which they have systematically swindled and disenfranchised through
consistent deception, violence and coercion. Puro panloloko, pandarahas at
pangangamkam,” Sibayan said.
Sibayan also lamented that since June 25, DAR and
PNP personnel using government-owned tractors are now directly involved in the
ruthless destruction of crops and productive organic farms in Barangay
Mapalacsiao, Hacienda Luisita to make way for the replanting of sugarcane by
another Cojuangco-Aquino agent, ex-LTO Chief Virgie Torres, a known ally and
Kabarilan [shooting range buddy] of Aquino.
“While Aquino coddles and grants special treatment
to pork plunderers, hundreds of Luisita farmers have been subjected to police
brutality and harassment suits. Under this landlord president, I have been
mauled by police several times, imprisoned at least three times while facing
numerous trumped-up charges because of defending farmworkers’ rights to our
land,” Sibayan said.
P U N C H L I N E
A Commentary
"SONAmashit"?
By: Bencio Balino
By: Bencio Balino
It really depends on who's judging Mr. BS Aquino III. But as we see it,
his fifth and penultimate "Statement Of the Nation Address" [SONA] this
July 2014 is a mere arithmetical recitation of his so-called
completed/yet-to-be-completed infrastructure projects which are mostly
difficult to believe [and verify] if he indeed initiated all these and not by
previous administration[s]. Obviously justifying "holDAP" [disbursement
acceleration program], he goes on to brag that some of these projects were
financed by the illegal fund that only he [yes, only he!] has the sole and
absolute discretion where to source and spend all the hundreds of billions of
pesos without clear and transparent accountability. Obviously, too, this is a
swipe [again!] at the Supreme Court's declaring the DAP unconstitutional.
A brag that he is [he alleged to have barely escaped death in the 1989
military coup against his mother], he boasted to have alleviated the sufferings
of the poor by spending PhP120 billion for his dole-out program dubbed as
"Pantawid Pamilya Program", or the CCT ["conditional cash
transfer"] since assuming office over four years ago even as the
"Pulse Asia" survey in June says that 600,000 families were added anew
to the legions of those already languishing below the poverty line.
Aside from detailing some purchases of mostly second hand military arms
and equipment, Mr. Aquino forgot quite a number of vital agenda but not to
praise some of his cabinet members who were suspect to be running for higher
posts in the 2016 elections. Waxing hot and emotional, he lambasted his critics
for the nth time falling short of calling them evil; while, at one point, he
[and Sisters Kris and Ballsy!] broke down to tears on mere mention of their
parents name in the SONA text. For the political icing, P-Noy heads into early politicking
by advising his audience to elect people of his kind to push his "yellow
program" beyond his term.
By intent, or a sorry miss?
With a cabal of lawyers and advisers at his beck, it can’t be a sorry
miss. Aquino made no mention of his repeated promise--the passage into law of
the proposed "Freedom of Information" [FOI] bill widely sought for by
the public. He's probably too scared that an FOI law may boomerang, first, into
his "yellow face" and, second, to his minions'.
Aquino missed altogether the rice and power crises--both at critical
proportion since the former involves not only smuggling but in the lack of supply and the searing prices
of the people’s staple; while the latter is plagued by frequent brownouts due
to breakdowns of aging power plants that are in dire need not only of urgent
upkeep but for additional units as well. P-Noy have said nothing on the price
and supply crisis facing the ginger-garlic-onion industry reported to be mired
as well by smuggling.
P-Noy doesn't seem to care casting even a line in his SONA about his own
people--the overseas Filipino workers [OFWs]--laboring hard abroad to fuel up a
sagging economy. He has totally forgotten his so-called "national greening
program" [NGP] even in the midst of all-too-frequent flooding and warming
of global temperature and drought. He haven't any say on good and affordable
healthcare as to easily cede to big business some all-too-important government
hospitals like the Philippine Orthopedic Center and the Philippine Children's
Medical Center.
The Conjuangco-Aquinos are sowing terror and killings among the restive
Hacienda Luisita's tenants and farmworkers with P-Noy's bloodthirsty clan
desperately hanging on to over 6,000 hectares of land mandated by law and the
high court for them to distribute said lands back to the tenant farmers.
Aquino's clan frowns at genuine agrarian reform as they disdain genuine change.
As President of an impoverished nation, he failed to squarely discuss
vital growth factors such as manufacturing, agriculture and the likes. His
human rights record is equally dangerous for political activists and press
people who bore the brunt of killings during his term. According to crime
watchdog VACC [Volunteer Against Crime and Corruption], P-Noy's term record is
highest on high-profile crimes including the rampant
"riding-in-tandem" killings.
Now, when BS Aquino can't push you around, he can at least lie through
his teeth. He rattled a load of convoluted data on education, poverty, crime,
employment, etc., that are nowhere to be found in any decent and reputable
paper or journal. Much less can you see it on the ground. Go to Zamboanga; to
Bohol; to Leyte-Samar; down to typhoons Sendong's [2011] and Pablo's [2012]
paths. See for yourselves and talk to the people out there and you'll see in
their eyes a liar president and his "SONAmashit"!
F E A T U R E
[On the average, a hectare of land
yields 100 cavans of rice. The 53 hectares of land destroyed could have
produced 5,300 cavans of rice per harvest season or 10,600 cavans for one year.
A cavan is equivalent to 50 kilos.]
MANILA – In just a minute, 12 banana trees were razed
to the ground. A blue tractor then ran over the
newly planted chili and peanut plants in sitio Maligaya, Mapalacsiao village
inside the Hacienda Luisita, July 8.
Farmers Rebecca Santos, Neng Pineda,
Teresita Ocampo and Reynaldo Ocampo attempted to defend the 9.1-hectare land
they have cultivated for the past nine years. Their efforts proved futile as
fully-armed policemen and personnel from the Provincial Agrarian Reform Office [PARO]
led by lawyer Jose Eduardo Narciso facilitated the destruction of their crops.
The incident is the latest of a
series of bulldozing activities targeting agricultural lands inside the
hacienda that began in December 2013. Almost 53 hectares of land planted to
palay, vegetables and fruit trees – a part of the tillage campaign of the
Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Asyenda Luisita [Ambala] since 2005 — have already
been destroyed.
Supporters of the Ambala’s tillage
campaign condemned what they called as “attacks against the Hacienda Luisita
farmers.”
Alfredo G. dela Mines, organic farming specialist of the Ecotech
Masipag, told Bulatlat.com in a phone interview,
“This is a clear case of transgression. The farmers are the owners of the land.
Why would they harass the farmers?”
Dela Mines, who has been providing
free trainings to Hacienda Luisita farmers since June last year, cited the
Supreme Court April 24, 2012 decision ordering the distribution of Hacienda
Luisita land to the farmworker-beneficiaries.
The demo farms Dela Mines helped
cultivate in the villages of Balete and Mapalacsiao were among those destroyed.
Another supporter, Fr. Jesse Dumaual, MSC, told Bulatlat.com he is saddened by the recent developments
in Hacienda Luisita.
Like Dela Mines, the Catholic priest
also provided trainings on organic farming and sustainable agriculture since
February 2013. With the help of Catholic churches and some foundations, the
priest was able to donate machineries, seedlings, inputs, fuel and other materials
to Hacienda Luisita farmers amounting to P400,000.
Potential food supplier
Both Dela Mines and Dumaual
recognized the potential of Hacienda Luisita for agricultural production.
On the average, a hectare of land
yields 100 cavans of rice. The 53 hectares of land destroyed could have
produced 5,300 cavans of rice per harvest season or 10,600 cavans for one year.
A cavan is equivalent to 50 kilos.
Dumaual said marketing would not be
problem. Even before harvest season, the priest said there were some church
institutions that pledged to buy organic rice from Hacienda Luisita farmers.
Dela Mines said if thousands of
hectares of land would be devoted to vegetable production, Hacienda Luisita
farmers could supply vegetables to Metro Manila.
Dela Mines who has been teaching
organic farming since 1998 said a hectare of land planted with bitter gourd or
ampalaya could earn P1 million in one year. He said that in four months, a
farmer could harvest ampalaya for 15 to 20 times. In one cropping, farmers
could earn P500,000 per hectare.
The pilot farm that Dela Mines
supervised in Balete village had ampalaya, string beans, eggplant, tomatoes and
other vegetables. It was destroyed by the security guards of the Tarlac
Development Corporation (Tadeco) before Christmas last year.
Tadeco, a corporation owned by the
clan of President Benigno Aquino III, is claiming ownership of thousands of
hectares of land in Hacienda Luisita after the high court issued its historic
ruling.
Fr. Dumaual noted that the
agricultural lands destroyed in Balete village are part of the notice of
coverage issued by DAR.
“Hacienda Luisita is a prime
agricultural land,” Fr. Dumaual said. “It would be such a waste if the land
would be converted to commercial and industrial use.”
Better than sugarcane
Dela Mines said rice and vegetable
production would yield more income than sugarcane.
At the maximum, a hectare of
sugarcane could earn P100,000 as opposed to P1 million per hectare for
vegetables, Dela Mines said. He added that the five years of income from
sugarcane could be earned in just one year from vegetables.
Dela Mines said the sugar block
farming being promoted by the DAR in Hacienda Luisita is tantamount to
“dictating what farmers should plant.”
“The sugar block farming being pushed
by the Department of Agrarian Reform would benefit the sugar mill of the
Cojuangco-Aquinos,” Dela Mines said. The Ambala also revealed that “sugarcane
financiers” – who are mainly friends and dummies of the Cojuangco-Aquino clan –
have leased thousands of hectares of land from farmworker-beneficiaries.
DAR should listen
Fr. Dumaual attributed the disputes
among the farmers to the raffle system of land distribution implemented by the
DAR.
“DAR should listen to the farmers,”
the priest said. He said the DAR should have allowed farmers who have
cultivated the land since 2005 to stay where their farms are located.
Both supporters have called on
Hacienda Luisita farmers to defend their tillage campaign.
“We are always starting from
scratch,” Fr. Dumaual said. After the destruction of some land, they would
proceed to another. “But it’s okay, as long as the farmers are willing to till,
we will support them.”
This pilot farm in Balete village was
destroyed by the security guards of the Cojuangco-owned Tarlac Development Corporation
(Tadeco) in December 2013. (Photo by Ronalyn V. Olea / Bulatlat.com)
L I T E R A RY
E D I T O R I A L B O
A R D
MEMBERS:
Rudy D. Antonio [Canada Correspondent]; Engr. Silver
Casilla & RN Merly Grospe-Mayo [U.S. Correspondents]; Ronilo R.
Corpuz [Vienna Correspondent]; Fely Dumaguing-Malgapo [Milan Correspondent]; Engr. Joe
L. Sevilla [Asingan Correspondent]; Col. Lalin Layos-Pascual; Ross C. Diaz;
Engr. Lorie dG. Estrada;
CPA Rod A. Layco; Wena
Agaton-Balino [Photo & Lay-out Artist];
Ruben “Bencio” Balino [ Editor-In-Chief].
