June 19, 2020
Nearing death’s door, aging and ailing Negros farmers mourn over Danding’s failure to return to them their land before tycoon died
‘Cojuangco lived and died rich, while we continue to be poor and may likely die still poor and landless despite working hard’
Following Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.’s recent demise, aging and ailing farmers of Negros Occidental expressed grief not just over his passing, but also because the businessman died without returning a vast agricultural landholding in the province to them, even when the said property was awarded to the peasants over two decades ago through the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
“Many people were saddened by Mr. Cojuangco’s death. They remembered him as the kingmaker, the tycoon, and the boss of a company that sells the country’s most popular beer. Some politicians even described him as a very nice person with a kind heart,” said Noel Magan, president of the ECJ CLOA Holders and Farm Workers Association (ECHAFAWA)-TFM, a Negros-based peasant group and member of the national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad.
“But for us, his former farmworkers, while we also condole with his family and loved ones over their loss, what we will never forget was Cojuangco’s failure, in fact, refusal to give up control over a landholding that was no longer his,” Magan said.
“This caused us misery, prolonging our hardship, especially among my fellow peasants, who have grown old serving no one but Boss Danding but stayed poor and are now suffering from serious illnesses but can’t afford treatment. Perhaps, they would later on die without also affording a decent burial,” he added.
Magan is referring to the 12 contiguous haciendas covering 4,654 hectares found in the cities of Bago and La Carlota and the towns of La Castellana, Isabela, Hinigaran, Murcia, San Enrique, Himamaylan, and Pontevedra, all in Negros Occidental.
The haciendas, used to be owned by the late Cojuangco through his firm, ECJ & Sons Agricultural Enterprises, Inc. were supposedly awarded to Magan and 1,200 other farmworkers, through certificates of land ownership award (CLOA) that were generated in their favor by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) in 1997.
However, the farmworkers/CARP beneficiaries were unable to directly manage their haciendas and benefit from the fruits of their labor “because Cojuangco remained the lord of the landholdings,” said Magan.
Cojuangco’s continued grip over the haciendas became possible through DAR Administrative Order No. 2 of 1999, issued by then Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Morales Jr., during the presidency of Joseph Estrada, who was Cojuangco’s vice presidential running mate in the 1992 polls. The order set the rules and regulations for the establishment of a joint agribusiness venture between Cojuangco and the CARP beneficiaries.
Under the business deal, Magan’s group, through the ECJ Farmworkers Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Multipurpose Cooperative, the use of the landholdings owned by the CARP beneficiaries would be assigned to the joint enterprise in exchange for a 30 percent equity in the venture, while Cojuangco’s camp would get 70 percent-equity in exchange for providing capital, facilities, and technical expertise to operate the haciendas.
‘Danding died rich, but we will die poor even though we’ve worked so hard’
“But there was really no deal. There was no mutual benefit. What we only had was a paper, a title, saying that we own the land. Danding was still the boss in the haciendas and we remained as his underpaid farmworkers,” said 68-year-old CARP beneficiary Gilbert Jamora, father of seven, who started working in 1996 in La Carlota City’s Hacienda Fe, among the 12 landholdings included in the joint venture.
“He still controlled the property and would not let us touch it and plant and harvest what we wanted in our own landholding,” he said.
The property under the joint venture was first planted with assorted fruit trees such as mango, durian, pili, santol, and mangosteen. Later, when the venture suffered losses, according to Cojuangco’s camp, the haciendas were again planted with sugarcane.
“And because he didn’t want to give it up, we remained poor. Many of us can’t even buy rice, so we just eat camote or banana as staple. Boss Danding is now dead, but he left his loved ones with so much wealth, they can never go hungry or penniless even if they choose to no longer work. But when we die, we will leave nothing to our kids and grandchildren but poverty even though we’ve spent most of our lives working so hard in the haciendas,” added Jamora.
Aging Cojuangco farmworker stricken with cancer
Like Jamora, nearly half of the surviving CLOA holders in the former Cojuangco landholdings are already sickly senior citizens aged between 60 and 70. Those who are in their 80s have either become paralyzed or died already.
Among the ailing CLOA holders is 63-year-old Mario Sorbito, who is suffering from skin cancer, according to his wife Susana.
“My husband could no longer walk. He has many lumps as big as eggs and calamansi in his soles, elbows, hands, and buttocks. He has been like that for the last four years,” said 56-year-old Susana, who suffers from fatty liver disease, but continues to take care of her husband and their 15-year-old blind daughter, the only child of the Sorbito couple.
Susana said Mario had started working in San Enrique town’s Hacienda Caridad, among the landholdings controlled by Cojuangco, in 1972 until he stopped in 2015, when he decided to join in the petition of his fellow CLOA holders for the DAR and the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council to revoke the agribusiness deal with the businessman.
“We don’t have money for Mario’s treatment and while we’re not sure about how he got the illness, we suspect that it has something to do with his job in the hacienda,” said Susana, adding that her husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2004, but still continued working in the hacienda.
“He was often assigned to spray the crops in the landholding with pesticide and insecticide, including the fruit trees planted there. And though he often wore a PPE (personal protective equipment), he often complained of discomfort because he could still inhale the chemical-laden spray,” she added.
Danding’s septuagenarian farmworker already blind and deaf
Meanwhile, 75-year-old Margarita Bibangco, another CLOA-holder and Cojuangco farmworker in Hacienda Fe, is already deaf and blind.
“Boss Danding promised my wife that through the agribusiness deal with him, the CLOA holders and their families would become don and doña. But he died without fulfilling his promise. We are already nearing our death, but we remain poor and hungry,” said 78-year-old Ernesto Bibangco, Margarita’s husband.
The Bibangco couple takes care of their 50-year-old PWD son, Caloy, who doesn’t have a right arm.
Another aging CARP beneficiary of the Cojuangco landholdings from Hacienda Balatong in the town of Isabela is 68-year-old Rosalinda Molina, a mother of six, whose family has also remained destitute.
“Only one of my children finished college with a degree in B.S. Criminology. I had to borrow dress and shoes during his graduation in 2015 because I had nothing to wear. We wanted to go to a fast food restaurant to celebrate, but we didn’t have money,” said Molina.
Also, she said only six of her teeth had remained and while she wanted to replace the missing ones, she could not afford dentures.
“I also don’t have money to go to the dentist. I just endure the pain when my tooth aches. I just extract some of my teeth by pulling them with my tongue. I was lucky that a free dental mission was held in our place once. That was the only time that my aching teeth were extracted by a dentist,” said Molina.
Wife of Cojuangco farmworker says poverty killed her husband
Jenny Villegas, who has also lost most of her teeth but is younger than Molina, solely takes care of her five children. Her husband, 52-year-old Antonio Villegas, a CLOA holder of Hacienda Candelaria, another Cojuangco hacienda in San Enrique town, died in 2018.
“My husband worked as a sander in the hacienda’s equipment facility. He suddenly grew weak until his feet got swollen and could no longer walk,” said the 48-year-old Jenny.
“We didn’t know what really caused his death. A doctor said he had diabetes, another said he was suffering from kidney disease. He could have lived longer if we had enough money for his treatment. Poverty killed my husband,” the widow said.
“My heart breaks every time Janine, my youngest child, who is only four years old, asks me, ‘Nanay, when will Tatay return home?’ Though I keep telling her that her father will no longer be with us because he’s already in heaven, Janine would always say, ‘Tatay will return.’”
“I want to get back the land from the Cojuangcos. That is my husband’s, that is ours. That land is our only hope, the only means for my children not to suffer from hunger and have a brighter future,” said Jenny, adding that her family could only afford one square meal a day.
PARC committee resolves to revoke Cojuangco deal but fails to execute decision
CLOA holders of the Cojuangco haciendas have been pressing the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte to terminate their joint venture deal with the late businessman. Most of them have been driven away from the haciendas after the management learned that they were petitioning for the revocation of the deal.
In August 2017, majority of the 20-member PARC Executive Committee (ExCom) chaired by DAR Secretary John Castriciones sided with the CARP beneficiaries of the Cojuangco haciendas by issuing a resolution recommending the revocation of the joint venture, saying the deal was “no longer financially and economically viable” and “fails to provide benefits” to the farmers/CLOA holders.
The PARC-ExCom further resolved that the “next step/plan for the speedy delivery of justice to the ARBs (agrarian reform beneficiaries of the Cojuangco haciendas),” would be the “parcelization of subject lands…installation of ARBs to the areas under petition, and the provision of adequate support services.”
The August 2017 PARC ExCom resolution bolstered the July 2017 results of the investigation by the DAR National Agribusiness Venture Arrangements Evaluation Committee (NAEC) that the joint venture scheme with Cojuangco “can be revoked” because it did not improve the economic status of the CLOA holders.
The NAEC said each CARP beneficiary, owning 2.56 hectares of the Cojuangco haciendas only received P10,000 yearly or P833 monthly profit from the said scheme, which failed to meet the objectives stated in DAR A.O. 2 of 1999.
Among A.O. 2’s objectives are “to enable” farmers “to enjoy the full benefits of agrarian reform” as well as “ensure the security of tenure and security of income of participating agrarian reform beneficiaries” through the joint venture.
In a September 2018 memo, the NAEC told the PARC ExCom that it “has decided to uphold its previous stance,” referring to the “disapproval” of the joint venture between Cojuangco and the CARP beneficiaries of the haciendas.
Cojuangco himself admits joint venture was a failure
The joint venture being a failure was in fact admitted by Cojuangco himself through his March 19, 2018 letter addressed to the PARC, noting that the corporation had been “incurring substantial losses over the past 12 years…”
The joint venture’s operations from 2005 to 2016 resulted in total losses of P2.9 billion, based on data from Cojuangco’s camp submitted to the DAR.
While the PARC ExCom has the mandate to carry out its resolution favoring the ARBs, the committee failed to immediately execute its 2017 decision and instead tossed the decision to President Duterte, the chair of the PARC, by recommending to the latter in February 2018 the revocation of the joint venture, noting that the lives of the CARP beneficiaries did not improve under the scheme.
“The PARC ExCom had long decided in our favor but we don’t know why it later became hesitant to execute its own decision even when it could and it should. It remained reluctant despite the fact that President Duterte had repeatedly said that he wanted ‘land reform implemented so the lives of the poor will improve at least in my lifetime’ and he was ‘angry at oligarchs (because) they get the fat of the land,’” said ECHAFAWA-TFM’s Magan. “The big question is: Who or what made the PARC ExCom lose its backbone?” he added. –
