Raffle fairest way to distribute Luisita–dar

AGRARIAN Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes defended the “raffle draw” system as a way of distributing farm lots to beneficiaries of Hacienda Lusita, saying that the use of a tambiolo (lottery drum) was the fairest and most transparent method.

De los Reyes was reacting to criticism by some agrarian reform groups that the raffle system was “unscientific and idiotic.”

In a statement, De los Reyes said the drawing of lots was necessary since the workers at Hacienda Luisita, the huge sugar estate surrendered by the family of President Aquino, were unlike the tenants on rice and corn lands. The sugar workers did not work on specific parcels of land, and thus had no permanent farm lots to claim as their own, he explained.

“There are two types of land covered by agrarian reform: Tenanted land where the farmers share in the harvest with the land owner, and the plantation-type lands where the farm workers receive a daily wage for their labor,” De los Reyes said.

“Farm workers in plantations like Hacienda Luisita are given assignments depending on the planting cycle in a year. They are not tenants. They have no fixed land to till, and their tasks vary from time to time, depending on the operational needs of the hacienda owners or plantation managers,” he said.

One problem seems to be that some farmers had—among themselves— staked informal claims on their preferred locations and lots.

Reports reaching the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR) provincial office in Tarlac said this informal staking of claims became a practice immediately after the hacienda stopped its operations in 2005 and also after the Supreme Court decided to invalidate the previous stock distribution arrangement at the hacienda last year.

Some farm workers, particularly those belonging to organized groups, occupied specific farm lots—many of them larger than the allotted 6,600 square meters.

“The DAR did not clear that, and we did not recognize those unilateral actions in lot allocations,” De los Reyes said.

Recognizing these informal stakes to certain lots “would not be consistent with the goal of having an orderly system of lot allocation, and would also be unfair to the overwhelming majority of beneficiaries,” he said.

“We do not give preferential treatment to any one person or group, nor to those who simply happen to have the loudest voice and who had already staked their claim. We must treat all qualified beneficiaries at Hacienda Luisita fairly,” he said.

He said the drawing of lots using a tambiolo would also prevent disputes that might result from competing claims among farm workers over specific portions of the sugar plantation.

“At Hacienda Luisita, for example, you have more than 6,212 qualified beneficiaries competing for 4,099 hectares of land. Every beneficiary has a preferred choice of location, so one can expect competing claims on specific farm lots,” he said.

“The DAR also considered the fact that there are five farmers’ groups operating in Hacienda Luisita, which have their own choices of location for their members,” he added.

De los Reyes noted that lot allocations at smaller plantations was easier to manage as the farm workers would just agree among themselves as to the location of the farm lots to be awarded individually.

What complicated matters at Hacienda Luisita, he said, was the attempt by some farmers’ groups to take over and control specific portions of the vast sugar estate.

He also said that the drawing of lots was an “established practice” of the DAR in agricultural lands where the unorganized beneficiaries outnumbered the organized ones, as well as in medium-sized landholdings where there was no actual possession by the potential beneficiaries.

This has been done in Negros Occidental, the Bicol region and other agrarian reform areas, he added.

De los Reyes said the lot allocation activity in Barangay Cutcut last Thursday was hailed as “very open and transparent” by the parish priest and other independent observers.

The event was witnessed and documented by many members of the media, some of whom were even invited to draw the names of beneficiaries from the tambiolo, he added.