In a statement issued through lawyer Antonio Ligon, the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) said “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.
The SC earlier declared final its November 22, 2011 resolution that ordered the actual distribution of the 4,915 hectares of Hacienda Luisita to 6,296 farmer beneficiaries who pay just compensation based on the 1989 land valuation.
Immediately after the announcement of the SC ruling on Hacienda Luisita, the owners of the plantation – also through Ligon – said: “We have always believed that the purpose of the law is ultimate justice and equal rule for everyone.
The application of the law in this case is no exception. The majority of the justices have spoken. HLI shall abide and will comply promptly with what is required by the decision.”
On the issue of just compensation, HLI said that there is a formula in the law that has to be applied.
“We will await the processes in compliance with the determination of just compensation provided for in the law,” it said.
Earlier, Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio delos Reyes had said his department would start immediately the process of distributing the land of Hacienda Luisita to its farmer beneficiaries.
“We will do all these things simultaneously: the valuation, ocular inspection, and the identification of the beneficiaries,” he said.The determination of just compensation would have to be done by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP).
President Benigno S . Aquino III's first appointee to the high court , Associate Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno voted to allow an agency under Malacanang determine the amount which the Hacienda Luisita Inc.
(HLI) is to receive as compensation for placing the sugar estate under the government's agrarian reform program.
At the end of its deliberations in Baguio City , court administrator Jose Midas Marquez said the SC in a vote of eight to six however ruled that the 1989 rates for the real estate prices of the estate will determine the compensation given to HLI which is largely controlled by the family of the president.
Aside from Sereno, those who voted to remand the question of the reckoning point for just compensation to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) were Associate Justices Lucas Bersamin, Diosdado Peralta, Mariano del Castillo.
Two other Aquino appointees Associate Justices Estela Bernabe and Bienvenido Reyes had sided with the minority position to send the question of payment price back to the executive department.
Militant groups claiming to represent farmworker beneficiaries in the hacienda earlier asked that Sereno inhibit herself in the case following her original dissenting opinion that the significantly higher market value of the land as of January 2, 2006 and not the 1989 rates should have been the reckoning point for just compensation.
Sereno's dissenting opinion would have resulted in a P 10 billion windfall for the hacienda. Another key supporter of the president who is reportedly being considered by Malacanang as a possible replacement for the chief justice position, senior associate justice Antonio Carpio inhibited himself from the proceedings.
The majority who ruled for the significantly lower 1989 rates as a reckoning point were Chief Justice Renato Corona, and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco, Arturo Brion, Teresita Leonardo- De Castro, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama , Jose Perez and Jose Mendoza.
The SC's Marquez said the case was just one of more than 200 other suits taken by the tribunal during its en banc session.
The high court, in fine, upheld its earlier resolution allowing the distribution of the 4,915.75-hectare Hacienda Luisita to its more than 6,000 farmer-beneficiaries. The Hacienda Luisita Inc. sought the Court's reversal of its November 22, 2011 resolution clarifying points in its July 5 decision on the matter.
In its motion for clarification and reconsideration, the HLI insisted that the reckoning period for the computation of the just compensation on its agricultural lands should at the time of the taking or at least at the issuance of the notice of coverage by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on January 2, 2006 pursuant to PARC's resolution recalling the approval of the SDP.
Alternatively, the HLI asked the Court to leave it up to the Land Bank and the Department of Agrarian Reform the determination of the reckoning period which is necessary in fixing the just compensation for the property.
In its November 22 resolution, the Court affirmed its July 5 decision that the just compensation for HLI’s agricultural land that will be transferred for land distribution to the farmer-beneficiaries should be computed based on the valuation of the land in 1989, when Presidential Agrarian Reform Council approved its stock distribution plan (SDP).
The Court said when PARC approved HLI’s SDP, it was only the time that farmer-beneficiaries were considered to own and possess the agricultural lands in Hacienda Luisita.
The Court also noted that under RA 6657 the awarded lands may only be transferred or conveyed after ten 10 years from the issuance and registration of the emancipation patent (EP) or certificate of land ownership award (CLOA). ######
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