Luisita farmers resist move to fence lands.

Philippine Daily Inquirer
February 22, 2012

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Farm workers claiming ownership of a 500-hectare land inside Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac City denied provoking tension at the disputed property in Barangay Balite there on Monday.

Felix Nacpil, chair of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Asyenda Luisita (Ambala), said security guards manning the property bought by the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) inside the sugar estate did not have to fire their guns.

“Why did they have to shoot? We were merely taking out the aluminum roof that they used to fence the area,” Nacpil said on Monday. No one was hurt during the confrontation.

Nacpil said farm workers brought their bolos to cut wires on the fences.

The Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI), the company formed by the Cojuangco family and farm workers to manage the stock distribution program, the form of agrarian reform in the country’s largest contiguous sugar estate, denied instigating the confrontation.

“HLI has nothing to do with the supposed violence,” said lawyer Antonio Ligon, HLI spokesperson.

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