Battle over land

By some uncanny coincidence, the main points of attack of the camps of two leading presidential candidates are converging on land issues. The NP-Villar camp, including its allies from the militant left, has launched successive blasts against LP standard-bearer, Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III on the Hacienda Luisita issue. In turn, accusations of land-grabbing, illegal land conversion, and use of power and influence in enhancing Senator Villar’s real property business have been leveled against the NP candidate.

The militant left is a leading participant in the NP-Villar camp’s attack. Recall that they opted to boycott the 1986 snap elections and were not part of Cory Aquino’s rainbow coalition that was swept by People Power into the country’s leadership. Even after President Aquino set free Jose Ma. Sison and other CPP-NPA leaders, the militant left remained critical of her administration.

The Luisita attack is a mere rehash or recycling of the militant left’s historical antipathy toward the Cory Aquino presidency. Let the son bear his late mother’s burden.

What are the facts conveniently forgotten or omitted in the NP-Villar camp’s Luisita offensive?

First, it was President Aquino who included sugar lands in the coverage of agrarian reform. From 1963 to 1987 (through both the Macapagal and Marcos administrations covering a total of 24 years) only rice and corn lands were covered. Against her family’s own interests, President Aquino opted to place sugar lands, including Hacienda Luisita, under agrarian reform.

Secondly, as a sugar plantation, Luisita has always employed farm workers. Scale economy is essential to viability. It is unlike the situation in rice and corn where a landlord-tenant relationship is the dominant mode in production.

Thirdly, the Cojuangco family has no record of violence. The family acquired Hacienda Luisita from Tabacalera in 1957. For 57 years, or until November 2004, there was no violence in Luisita. The violence in November 2004 arose from an illegal strike heavily supported by the militant left.

Now that he is a presidential candidate, Noynoy Aquino is being dragged into the Luisita controversy. Strenuous efforts are being made to link him to the alleged Luisita massacre of November 2004. Contrary to allegations, he was never a vice president for security of Hacienda Luisita, Inc., or of Tarlac Development Corp. Then there are tales on the alleged involvement of Noynoy’s bodyguards in violence against members of the Luisita union. Unheard of for more than five years, these allegations surfaced only when Senator Aquino became a candidate for the 2010 presidential elections.

What about the LP-Aquino camp’s charges against Senator Villar that also focus on his real property business?

When the Aquino-Roxas tandem made a sortie in Iloilo City in February, senatorial candidate Franklin Drilon exposed the questionable Villar land deals. He presented an Iloilo official who reported that, according to public records, Mr. Villar’s companies first acquired parcels of irrigated land that were then allegedly fenced off, thereby depriving adjoining rice farms of much-needed irrigation. This allegedly facilitated the acquisition of up to 250 hectares of land that comprise the Savannah estate owned by Mr. Villar’s companies.

Other groups have hurled similarly serious charges against Mr. Villar. A group of Dumagats have come out showing documented proof that Mr. Villar’s companies used allegedly spurious land titles to obtain loans from the Bangko Sentral to prop up the precarious financial standing of the Villar-owned Capitol Development Bank. This alleged instance of land grabbing is based on the contention that the land titles were issued in 1944 or during the Japanese occupation when it was most unlikely for such documents to have been prepared at all.

Another group of concerned citizens have aired a land-grabbing charge against Mr. Villar’s companies pertaining to Paradise Park in San Pedro, Laguna.

But by far the most serious charges were those aired by then Rep. Joker Arroyo who, in August 1998, delivered a privilege speech calling for an investigation of alleged violations of the Constitution and laws of the land by then newly elected Speaker Villar (see Vector, March 12, 2010).

Mr. Antonio Hidalgo, who served as secretary-general of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) during the Ramos administration, has corroborated Mr. Arroyo’s charges.

According to Mr. Hidalgo, in the aftermath of the EDSA revolution, Mr. Villar and his colleagues in the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Associations (CREBA) influenced the Aquino administration in launching an aggressive mortgage financing program, the Unified Home Lending Program (UHLP) of the National Home Finance Mortgage Corp. (NHMFC) and the Pag-Ibig Fund. Mr. Hidalgo wrote in an e-mail message:

"Look at the results of Villar’s thousands of houses under the UHLP from 1986 to 1997 (when we reformed the UHLP to prevent Villar from bankrupting the country). Villar became a billionaire. NHMFC, the financial coordinator of the program, was bankrupted. The funders (SSS, GSIS, Pag-Ibig) were stuck with billions in bad home mortgages covering Villar’s houses and flirted with bankruptcy for a while. Eventually, these bad mortgages had to be covered by the national government using its tax revenues (including your taxes and mine) because the funders were covered by a sovereign guarantee. Subsequently (beginning 2003 or 2004), the losses on the bad mortgages had to be written off by selling them through special purpose asset vehicles (SPAVS) at a fraction of their face value. Meanwhile, look around you. Nearly half of the residents of Metro Manila still live in squatter areas!"

Messrs. Arroyo and Hidalgo are emphasizing the same theme: Mr. Villar, as a congressman (then House speaker) and as a senator (then Senate president) actively participated in the enactment of laws that favored his businesses directly. This is the essence of the resolution of the Senate Committee of the Whole on the C-5 controversy which 12 of his fellow senators signed: that he committed acts inimical to the Republic and favorable to his own businesses.

It is undeniable that the tremendous increase in Mr. Villar’s personal net worth — he was catapulted to the Top 10 Richest Filipinos list of Forbes magazine in 2008, the only public official in that list — was achieved while holding public office.

Last Sunday, the gospel featured an admonition from Jesus Christ to the Pharisees who had wanted to stone an adulterous woman, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Comparing the Aquino and Villar records on these issues, who between the two is facing the electorate with cleaner hands: the son of two national heroes and icons of democracy who is considered the most trustworthy among the presidential candidates, or the businessman who broke into billionaire’s row as a congressman and senator?

source - http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=8365