Glowing legacy?
THE COJUANGCO family, who owns Hacienda Luisita, describes the immediate distribution of the huge sugarcane plantation as mandated by the Supreme Court as a “glowing legacy for President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino.”
The Cojuangcos should not use the name of the late President in vain.
Had they followed the late President’s centerpiece project, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which divided big landholdings among their tenant-farmers, the Hacienda Luisita controversy wouldn’t have reached the Supreme Court.
President Noy’s relatives offered—or rather forced upon—luisita’s farmers and workers the stock distribution option in place of owning the subdivided farmland.
After many years, the Luisita farmers and workers have remained poor even after Cory Aquino’s agrarian reform program, while their counterparts who benefited from CARP have become better off financially.
Isn’t it ironic that the family of President Cory, the mother of agrarian reform, refused to recognize her administration’s most significant project?
Had the Cojuangcos been at the forefront of CARP, P-noy’s presidency would not have been tainted by the Hacienda Luisita controversy. “Glowing legacy,” my eye!
***
The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) will be replaced with a new political entity and given a new name to help find peaceful solutions in the troubled region.
As long as ordinary Moros consider the government in Manila as an enemy, an attitude some of their leaders encourage, peace will continue to be an elusive dream in Muslim Mindanao.
As for the entity’s new name, let’s paraphrase Shakespeare: A piece of s*** by any other name smells just as bad.
*** Eleven government soldiers and two civilians were killed in an ambush by the New People’s Army in Ifugao province.
More soldiers than guerrillas are killed in the government’s unconventional war with the NPA and Moro rebels.
At the rate government soldiers are being butchered by the enemy, there may only be a few left.
***
At the height of the war in Mindanao in the 1970s, an Army brigade suffered many casualties.
But instead of worrying, the brigade commander, a Visayan, even cracked a joke.
“
(There are still many Ilocanos in Luzon),” he said.
The joke reached President Marcos who promptly relieved the brigade commander.
*** The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) unit in Batangas province, which was recently relieved, claims the arrest of Maria Cristina Rodriguez, a student residing in Manila, was legitimate.
The sacked agents claimed Rodriguez was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, on April 20.
But the CCTV footage at Metropoint Mall in Pasay City showed the CIDG agents with Rodriguez on April 18, three days before the Batangas CIDG office was raided by cops from Camp Crame.
Rodriguez’s relatives had complained to me that she was being held by Batangas CIDG agents who were demanding a P500,000 ransom for her release.
I called up PNP Chief Nick Bartolome after checking the allegations of the victim’s relatives.
By the way, the relieved CIDG unit is reportedly so corrupt one of its members was allegedly able to give his girlfriend, a reporter for a daily, a brandnew sports utility vehicle.