Settle Hacienda Luisita just compensation–SC

The Supreme Court has ordered the creation of a task force that would gather all documents necessary to determine the just compensation that Cojuangco clan-owned Hacienda Luisita Inc. is entitled following an order to distribute its 4,915.75-hectare sugar land plantation in Tarlac to more than 6,000 farm worker-beneficiaries.

In an en banc resolution, the SC through Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul Inting ruled that the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, the Department of Agrarian Reform, and the Register of Deeds should come together and form a task force “for purposes of completing and collating the documentation required to validate the homelot awards.”

Upon completion of the validation procedures, the SC directed DAR to determine just compensation for HLI.

The high court also ordered the Land Bank of the Philippines to release the payment of just compensation for the homelots according to the result of DAR’s validation process.

It said the just compensation for HLI should be derived from the Agrarian Reform Fund of DAR.

The high tribunal directed the creation of a task force after HLI claimed it does not have the original copies of the transfer documents which have either been submitted to the Register of Deeds or given to the beneficiaries.

Prior to this, in compliance with the SC’s directive to implement the main decision and subsequent resolutions on the case, the DAR started the process of validating the list of homelot awardees.

Based on its research, it found out, among others, the total homelot area and the number of FWBs awarded with homelot titles.

But PARC and DAR said the certified true copies of the transfer documents evidencing the award of homelots to the individual recipients are necessary to complete the validation process.

“Significantly, the completion of the DAR’s validation procedures is a precondition to the payment of just compensation. Thus, it is in HLI’s best interest to fully cooperate with the DAR which includes providing the necessary documents to the best of their ability. It is difficult to believe that HLI no longer possesses the originals/certified true copies of these documents,” the tribunal said.

“Certainly, as the transferor in the disposition of homelots, it must have retained copies of the documents evidencing those transfers,” it added.

The SC also denied with finality the motion for reconsideration filed by Noel Mallari of the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid ng  Hacienda Luisita (Ambala) and Winsor Andaya of the HLI Supervisory Group.

The court rejected Mallari and Andaya’s bid to stop the implementation of the main decision issued in July 5, 2011 and the November 22, 2011 resolution insofar as these directed that “any unspent or unused balance and any disallowed expenditures as determined by the audit shall be distributed to the 6,296 original FWBs.”

On November 22, 2011, the court issued a resolution ordering the direct distribution of the sugar land plantation to its FWBs.

The resolution modified the tribunal’s July 5, 2011 original decision which gave the FWBs the option to remain as stockholders of HLI in lieu of land distribution, which is mandated under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

With regard to HLI’s entitlement to just compensation, the Court said the issue has been settled in its previous decisions with finality, barring the parties from raising arguments aimed at modifying the final rulings.

“The Court cannot allow the parties to prolong these proceedings by filing motion after motion, only to perpetually deflect/delay [a legal] obligation,” the SC said.