The Supreme Court decision regarding the Hacienda Luisita dispute was very baffling. It revoked the Stock Distribution Plan (SDP) and then ordered a referendum to make the farmers choose between land or the Stock Distribution Option (SDO).
Instead of a referendum, the HLI should be given to the farmers, as is originally mandated by law, when the Cojuangco patriarch loaned money from the GSIS to buy the hacienda. The land should have been distributed since 1967. Furthermore, since the farm workers’ strike in 2004 and they stopped planting sugarcane, the lives of the farmers improved with their planting of rice and other food crops. This is due to the fact that they can use the crops for household consumption, as opposed to sugarcane which they cannot readily eat.
To help the farmers break free from their feudal bondage, the Philippine Network of Food Security Programmes (PNFSP) implemented a comprehensive food security program in Hacienda Luisita in 2010. Through its Sustainable Agriculture Community Level Appropriate Technology (SACLAT) program, seeds were dispersed to two hundred families. They are members of Bungkalan, under the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU) from Brgy. Balete. The objective was to help the farmers have food to eat and part of their harvested seeds will be given to farmers in other areas who are also in need.
The provinces of Sarangani, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat were placed under a state of calamity in the wake of heavy weekend rains from typhoon Butchoy. (international name Rammasun). The massive low-pressure area brought in rain and wind throughout an entire week.
In Sarangani province, two deaths have been reported in the town of Glan. Flood waters carried the victims away on May 9.
The food security of the indigenous peoples of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya is
threatened by the large-scale mining operations of OceanaGold
Philippines, Inc. (OGPI) and Oxiana-RoyalCo. At the same time, the FPIC
process under the IPRA law brings disunity among the IPs residing in
the affected areas.
