Satur: Luisita Dispute transcends elections

The issue of agrarian reform in the Cojuangco family-owned Hacienda Luisita should not be reduced into a simple electoral issue to be used and then forgotten after the 2010 elections.

Thus said Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita massacre today.

“The farm workers of Hacienda Luisita are not raising the issue of agrarian reform to discredit Sen. Noynoy Aquino’s candidacy. They have been fighting for their right to own the land even when Ninoy Aquino was alive and Noynoy was still a child,” Ocampo said.

“Likewise, they are not doing this to support the candidacies of Aquino’s rivals,” he added.

He said that the Liberal Party and the Aquino camp should not take it against the farmers when they bring up the issue in the wake of Aquino’s candidacy. “Logic dictates that the farmers will press this issue because now, more than ever, a fair and just solution to the problem is possible with the DAR’s decision to junk the stock distribution option between the farm workers and the Cojuangco family.”

“The farmers are concerned that if a solution is not reached before the 2010 elections, they would again be forgotten by the next government and relegated to just being fodder for the elections,” Ocampo added.

“Sana’y huwag isipin ni Noynoy o ninuman na namumulitika lang ang mga magsasaka sa hacienda. For them, this is a life and death issue that must be resolve whether Noynoy runs for the presidency or not,”  Ocampo said.

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