By SABLEE BULAON

TARLAC CITY — Two militant peasant groups in the province severely criticized the "arrogance" of the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI)’s management for snubbing an invitation of the city council here for a dialogue on its drastic cutback of working man-days for more than 5,000 farm-workers.

Supposedly, Jose Rafael Teopaco, HLI’s administration division chief, should have had faced leaders and members of the militant Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang-Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA) last Tuesday, Aug. 20, along with the radical Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Tarlac (AMT), at the session hall of the city council.

The meeting, which was planned to be overseen by Vice Mayor Miguel Tañedo and the city councilors here, was intended to thresh out the farm-workers’ protest against the reduction of their working man-days to only 1 to 2 days a week for a measly salary of P194 each, as well as the delay in the release of their service bonuses, unused sick leaves and educational loans.

In refusing to meet with the protesting farm-workers, Teopaco told Tañedo in a letter that the city council is "not the proper forum" to resolve the conflict that has dragged on since May this year.

In a joint statement, leaders of AMBALA and AMT said that they "are not a bit surprised by the HLI management’s latest display of arrogance."

"This only shows that the HLI management cannot be compelled to answer the questions of the farm-workers if it does not consider the forum to be appropriate and proper," added the two left-leaning groups.

Demonstrations have been going on almost everyday inside the Hacienda Luisita, as well as at the city proper here, since the 6,000-hectare sugar estate’s management drastically reduced the working days for its farm-workers last May 13.

A two-day siege by hundreds of farm-workers at HLI’s main office compound last May allegedly resulted to the destruction of one of the firm’s gates and reportedly left two security guards seriously wounded, for which 14 protest leaders were criminally charged in court.

According to Teopaco, the HLI "prefers to settle, resolve or address whatever are the concerns of the farm-workers through their duly constituted and recognized bargaining representative — the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU)."

However, AMBALA said that "this (will be) an exercise in futility (for) as long as ULWU is not truly representative of the farm-workers."

AMT and AMBALA accused ULWU president, Francisco Sigua, of having "betrayed" the farm-workers and described him as "a known loyal henchman of the Cojuangcos."

Sigua is further known to be a target for liquidation of the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) for alleged "blood debts" to residents of Hacienda Luisita’s 10 barangays.

Sometime last year, Sigua and a policeman-bodyguard survived an assassination attempt right inside in the sugar estate, which the NPA in the province immediately admitted to have undertaken.

"The ULWU caters only to the interests of the Cojuangcos," said AMT and AMBALA.

The two radical peasant groups further chided Teopaco for stating that the HLI is "ready and willing to discuss agrarian issues through the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)."

They stated: "We feel that the DAR failed miserably where recognizing and protecting the rights of farmers and farm-workers are concerned."

The two militant groups pointed out that through the DAR during the term of former President Corazon Aquino, whose family owns the Hacienda Luisita, the stock distribution option (SDO) scheme was implemented after the land distribution option (LDO) scheme was supposedly overwhelmingly defeated in a plebiscite.

Under the SDO arrangement, Hacienda Luisita’s farm-workers supposedly own "stocks" in the HLI.