President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday questioned the agrarian reform legacy of Corazon Aquino, the country’s first female leader who belonged to a wealthy and landed family.
Duterte said Aquino exempted Hacienda Luisita, a vast sugar plantation estate once owned by her clan, in Tarlac from the coverage of land distribution which was the centerpiece of her social legislative agenda. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was passed in 1988, two years into Aquino’s six-year term.
“Hindi niya sinali yung kanya. She exempted her [land]. So you call her what, the one who freed, emancipated? It’s an incongruity,” the president said in a speech before land reform beneficiaries in Davao City, a day after the 10th death anniversary of Aquino who succumbed to colon cancer on August 1, 2009.
Hacienda Luisita used to occupy 6,435 hectares but over the years, portions of land have been sold to industrial companies.
The stock distribution plan had been in place since 1989 when the Hacienda Luisita Inc. forged an agreement with thousands of farmers to get stocks instead of land.
The issue on land distribution had reached the Supreme Court which decided in November 2011 to give the more than 4,300 hectares of land to farmer beneficiaries.
Duterte said Aquino’s claim to fame was the death of her husband, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who fell by an assassin’s bullet at the Manila International Airport on August 21, 1983, following a three-year exile in the United States.
Ninoy Aquino’s death sparked various protests and catapulted Corazon to the presidency in February 1986 following the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos in a bloodless People Power revolution.
“Cory Aquino maybe popular, she is popular today. Why? For losing the husband in the hands of Mr. Marcos,” Duterte said.
Duterte has been criticized for his closeness with the Marcos family, the political rival of the Aquinos, even allowing the late dictator to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016.
