LUISITA PROTESTERS CLASH WITH ANTI-RIOT COPS
HACIENDA LUISITA, TARLAC, November 8, 2004 (STAR) By Benjie Villa — Tension continued to mount in this 6,000-hectare sugar plantation yesterday as protesting mill employees and farmworkers clashed with anti-riot policemen.
Heavily armed men suspected to be communist rebels also burned some 20 hectares of sugarcane that was ready for harvest.
The protesters and the lawmen first clashed at about 6 p.m. last Saturday in front of Gate 1 of this sprawling estate’s sugar refinery.
Leaders of the protesters claimed the policemen instigated the clash when they tried to break up the human barricade at Gate 1 using wicker clubs and water cannons.
Then before dawn yesterday, another clash ensued, also at Gate 1, prompting the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) to deploy men of the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion here.
The Nolcom headquarters at Camp Gen. Servillano Aquino is adjacent to this sugar plantation.
Protest leader Rene Galang, who was one of the 327 farmworkers laid off by the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) last October and subsequently ousted as president of the United Luisita Workers’ Union (UWLU), blamed the police for the clashes.
Lt. Col. Preme Monta, Nolcom spokesman, however, said the protesters twice tried to barge through the police "line of defense," and that some of them hurled stones and teargas cannisters at the lawmen.
Monta said the anti-riot lawmen, dispatched by Superintendent Rudy Lacadin, Tarlac City police chief, were maintaining the "first line of defense," while the 69th IB soldiers only served as a "backup force."
Maximum Tolerance
He said their men were under strict instructions from Lt. Gen. Romeo Dominguez, Nolcom commander, to observe "maximum tolerance" and to "smile" even if they were being stoned.
Monta said they had to help the police push back the protesters to enable the HLI to resume its refinery’s operations.
While it is the farmworkers’ right to stage protests to seek redress for their grievances, he said, "It is in line with the duty and mission of the Armed Forces to protect companies which contribute to the country’s economy."
It was around noon last Saturday when some 20 members of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), who were manning the mill’s boiler division, walked out and with the help of activists, barricaded the factory’s Gate 2. Without them, the mill had to be shut down.
For their part, members of ULWU, also reinforced by militants, barricaded Gate 1.
The CATLU represents about 700 workers of Hacienda Luisita, while the ULWU is the recognized union of more than 5,000 farmworkers.
The farmworkers are "co-shareholders" of the HLI under the stock distribution scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
The HLI management has reached a deadlock in its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks with the CATLU, which is demanding a P100 wage hike and a P30,000 signing bonus for each of its members.
The company, however, said it can only afford to give a P12 salary increase and a P12,000 signing bonus.
The ULWU, on the other hand, is demanding the reinstatement of its retrenched members, including Galang, vice president Ildefonso Pingul and eight other union officers.
The HLI reported said that some 20 hectares of sugarcane in Barangay Murcia in Concepcion town was set on fire an hour before the mass action started last Saturday.
Based on their investigation, Monta said several armed men, believed to be New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas, were sighted in the area before the fire broke out.
This explains why the Nolcom gave in to the HLI’s request for soldiers to be deployed here to reinforce the police, Monta said.
He said Dominguez also ordered the deployment here of elements of the Armed Forces’ Civil Disturbance Unit.
‘Prepared For Violent Actions’
Monta said that based on the Nolcom’s assessment, the protesters, especially the militants, are "prepared for violent actions."
Meanwhile, Galang told reporters that their demands from the HLI management are "simple," which include their return to their previous jobs, the reinstatement of their land reform benefits under the CARP’s stock option scheme and the resumption of ULWU’s CBA talks which got stalled when they were laid off.
Galang said they will continue to lock up the sugar mill "indefinitely" if their demands are not met.
Today, hundreds of farmworkers here will march to the downtown area of Tarlac City to dramatize their protest, Galang said.
The march coincides with the scheduled transport strike in the province and in Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan and Pangasinan against the series of oil price hikes.
CATLU members are reportedly confused about what course their president, Ric Ramos, was taking in the CBA deadlock and the mass actions.
While Ramos denied any hand in the walkout of the boiler workers, he was reportedly seen at the picketline at Gate 1, together with Tarlac City councilor Abel Ladera who is affiliated with the left-leaning Bayan Muna party-list group.
The HLI management said charges are being prepared against CATLU members who have joined the mass action which it said was "illegal" because the union did not conduct a "strike vote."
"It’s a wildcat action with no clear support from its worker-members and no intention to resolve the labor impasse. It’s intended to blackmail the management to give in to their unreasonable demands," said Jose Romasanta, spokesman of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac and HLI vice president for corporate affairs.
"The work stoppage was called without resorting to the usual procedures, making it illegal. Since it did not undergo the procedures, it was not sanctioned by their worker-members. That’s why it did not get any support from workers," Romasanta added.
The shutdown of the Hacienda Luisita sugar mill, the biggest in Luzon, came as sugarcane planters in Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and elsewhere in Central and Northern Luzon were bringing their harvested sugarcane to the facility for this year’s milling season.
The HLI claimed losses of P215.11 million in 2002 and P165.49 million last year.
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2004
by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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