Bomb Shrapnels

NY Times: Noynoy, liar!

A New York Times story showed that Senator Noynoy Aquino was not being truthful when he said that his family is ready to re-distribute Hacienda Luisita to its tenant-farmers in case he gets elected President in May.

No less than a cousin of Noynoy who is the chief operating officer of Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) exposed the presidential candidate’s doublespeak when Fernando Cojuangco told the Times that: “No, we’re not going to.” 

Cojuangco’s reply to a question by NY Times Asia bureau chief Norimitsu Onishi directly contradicted Noynoy’s earlier pronouncements in the land dispute that has already claimed the lives of seven farmers in what is now known as the Hacienda Luisita Massacre of 2004.

The NY Times stood pat on its story even as its Philippine correspondent Carlos Conde said in his website that: “We stand by our March 16, 2010, story on Hacienda Luisita. Our interview with Mr. Fernando Cojuangco… was recorded. If Mr. Cojuangco wishes the tape to be released to the public, we will gladly do so.”

Noynoy and Fernando both refused to take on the Times’ challenge for the tape to be released to the public, leading people to suspect that  there  may be more damning details that could come out from it.

In the Times article, Fernando Cojuangco also tried to belie that land reform was a centerpiece of the administration of Noynoy’s mother, the late President Cory Aquino, as an excuse for Luisita not being given back to farmers. 

Noynoy’s family should have given back the land to the farmers as early as 1967, as per the provisions of its loan from GSIS whose proceeds it used to purchase Luisita with.

But till now, Noynoy’s family had kept its stranglehold on Luisita through its use of a stock distribution scheme instead of giving the farmers titles to the land, a ploy deemed illegal by the Presidential Agrarian Reform Commission (PARC).

The Cojuangcos had sought a temporary restraining order before the Supreme Court against the PARC ruling, prompting Cavite Rep. Crispin “Boying” Remulla to challenge Noynoy to show his sincerity by withdrawing the TRO.

Hacienda Luisita is also at the epicenter of what Remulla dubbed as the “SCTEX Massacre” pertaining to some P83 million in right-of-way fees the family pocketed from the road project, as well as the P179 million cost of the interchange that connected Luisita to the SCTEX roadway, for the sole benefit of Noynoy’s family.