Like Peter, Noynoy lied thrice. But unlike Peter, Noynoy is still lying!
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Since the New York Times came out last March 15 exposing that Noynoy Aquino lied to the people about the
true intentions of the Cojuangco family about Hacienda Luisita, the Liberal Party has been attempting in vain
to control the damage that is rocking his presidential candidacy.
The result is a series of faux pas piled on top of another.
First was a denial frustrated. Noynoy said his cousin who exposed the canard has already apologized to him
via text as he declared that Atty. Fernando Cojuangco, the chief operating officer of Hacienda Luisita, was
misquoted.
The Manila office of New York Times the following day however announced that it stood by its story and
refused to recant it. It even said that the whole interview was fully taped and if the interviewee so desires, a
copy can be provided him.
Second were sudden stringent prohibitions by the Aquino cordon sanitaire about what the press can ask
and not ask the candidate during their campaign sortie in Catarman. Verboten were: the Hacienda Luisita
case, the Reproductive Health bill, the Plaza Miranda bombing and questions about the burial of the late
president Ferdinand Marcos.
During the press conference, however, one reporter who was not present when the prohibited topics were
announced, asked about Hacienda Luisita. Noynoy's response however was that “We (the Cojuangcos) are
the oppressed party in this issue.”
A week has not been over and Noynoy has already lied three times. The presidential candidate could not
even wait for this Sunday's gospel where Peter would deny Christ three times.
So this morning, I was flabbergasted when I read the Liberal Party's formally responding from Bahuio City to
the Aquino prevarications. The snowjob effort had three talking points:
1) A P2-billion debt and complicated talks among the extended family of the late President Corazon
Cojuangco-Aquino are delaying settlement of a workers’ dispute over Hacienda Luisita,
2) Former secretaries of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) are attempting to help the LP presidential
candidate, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, find a solution to Noynoy's problem. These are Florencio Abad,
Philip Ella Juico and Ernesto Garilao.
3) Abad who is also the LP campaign manager said the party’s agrarian reform team was busy with “the
process of getting consensus” from the late President’s siblings, who are co-owners of the estate.
In short, all the kings men and all the kings horses are trying to put "Humpty Dumpty" or Noynoy back
together again.
Let us start with the third point. Abad does not seem to realize that for the fourth time, what he is saying is
that Noynoy has lied again. Earlier this week when trying to cover up his cousin, the presidential candidate
told the press that the Cojuangco family and he met in September right after he formally announced that he
was running for president. Noynoy earlier told the press that it was then that they already agreed to distribute
the property. That sounded like a consensus to me, so what consensus are these three stoogies of his
trying to extract from the Cojuangcos?
Now let us go to the first point. Sonuvagun, as the late Max Soliven would have said, they are already
preloading $2 billion to their bargaining position in anticipation of negotiations for the distribution of the
lands to the farmers.
But what has the farmers to do with this debt that is the corporate debt of the Cojuangcos, incurred iby their
mismanagement of the estate? Why would this even be a matter of concern for the farmers?
They have already denied the true owners of the land their productive use of their land, now they will burden
them or the government with their unproductiveness? This shows the unconscionable and unmitigated
greed of these oligarchs.
Lulutuin pa ang mga magsasaka at republika ng Pilipinas sa sariling nitong mantika. This issue is way
beyond their 1968 deadline. All they have to do is hand over the papers and the papers to the government
who will distribute the lands, and leave.
So now we come to the second point, that is, former agriarian secretaries Abad, Juico and Garilao, finding a
solution to this problem. Wow what an attempt to present a proactive mode!
Do the Filipino people know these characters?
Abad as secretary failed to defeprevent the Lankaan Estate in Cavite from being declared commercial during
the Cory Aquino presidency to the disadvantage of its farmers. Garilao disenfranchised during the FVR
administration, the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association - the NGO component of the Department
Agrarian Reform created by law to help implement the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
As for Juico, I inhibit myself from commenting because he is the godfather of one of my children. Instead,
here is a GMA News report:
The Garchitorena land scam
By Stephanie Dychiu
01/22/2010 | 05:33 PM
The implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) during the term of President
Cory Aquino was rocked by a number of scandals. One of the most notorious was the Garchitorena land
scam.
President Aquino was accused of knowing about the deal at least one month before it was exposed in
Congress. She was also linked to the financier behind the deal, a family friend who played a key role in
Aquino’s campaign against Marcos in Bicol.
The scam involved the 1,888-hectare Garchitorena estate in Camarines Sur, a former abaca plantation that
was no longer useful for cultivation. The government nearly bought it in 1989 for P62.7 million.
P3.8 million land sold for P62.7 million
On April 27, 1988, the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) agreed to sell one of its foreclosed properties,
the Garchitorena estate, to Sharp International Marketing for P3.8 million.
On May 14, 1988, before the sale was consummated, Sharp tried to sell the estate to the government for P56
million under CARP’s Voluntary Offer to Sell (VOS) program.
(Under VOS, landowners could voluntarily sell land to the government which the government then distributed
to farmers at cost. The VOS opened the door to plenty of collusion between landowners and officials of the
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Lands were offered to the government at inflated prices, and
purchased with taxpayers’ money. The profits from the overpricing were then pocketed by landowners,
brokers, and DAR officials.)
Sharp’s offer to sell the Garchitorena estate was approved by the provincial office of the DAR, where the
already inflated price of P56 million was further jacked up to P65 million.
On December 28, 1988, DAR Secretary Philip Juico authorized the Land Bank to release payment to Sharp.
The amount in his payment order was P62.7 million.
Land Bank exposes scam
The payment order was returned by the Land Bank when it found out that the Garchitorena estate had been
acquired by Sharp for only P3.8 million one year before.
Sharp went to the Supreme Court to force the release of the P62.7 million payment. The Land Bank went to
Congress to expose the deal. The scam exploded in the media when Rep. Edcel Lagman disclosed the
details to the House-Senate Committee on May 13, 1989.
Enrile: Cory knew about scam
In a June 6, 1989 report of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Senate Minority Floor Leader Juan Ponce Enrile said
Father Joaquin Bernas told President Aquino about the illicit Garchitorena deal about to take place on April 1,
1989.
“But only when the anomaly was leaked to the papers did she say anything about it," Enrile said. “I wonder
what happened during this one month. Were there words of caution for (Secretary) Popoy Juico?"
In his 1992 book A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines , American development
studies expert Dr. James Putzel also mentioned that Father Bernas had informed President Aquino about
the Garchitorena deal on April 1, 1989.
Aquino then met with the DAR and Land Bank heads on April 5, 1989. Then, Sharp petitioned the Supreme
Court to enforce the P62.7 million payment. Juico subsequently stopped the payment order, but the scam
had already been exposed in Congress.
The financier, an Aquino family friend
Putzel further noted that during the investigation after the scam, it was learned that UCPB’s sale of the
Garchitorena estate to Sharp was consummated only on December 5, 1988, suggesting that the bank was
complicit in the fraud. UCPB had in fact already lined up another estate in Camarines Sur, the Liboro estate,
for sale to Sharp.
“The major financier behind both land deals was Romeo Santos, who had provided the funds for the land
purchase to Sharp president Alex Lina," Putzel wrote. “ Santos had been selling land to DAR throughout the
1970s to 1980s.
“Romeo Santos was an associate of the President’s brother, Jose ‘Peping’ Cojuangco. He became close to
the family when he organized the Laban in Bicol and played a pivotal role in President Aquino’s campaign
against Marcos in the region. After Aquino came to office, her brother had urged Santos ’s appointment as
manager of the Manila International Airport ."
Romeo Santos was married to Maria Magdalena Garchitorena, whose family originally owned the
Garchitorena estate.
Farmers victimized—again
Throughout the sordid affair, the country’s farmers, as usual, were the biggest losers, because the
government’s land acquisition and distribution activities slowed down while the Garchitorena case was
being investigated.
Whenever the government acquired overpriced land, it also became pointless for the land to be awarded to
farmers, because the farmers could no longer afford to pay the inflated cost. - GMANews.TV
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