I've heard it even before Noynoy Aquino formally declared his bid for the presidency yesterday. They say, Hacienda Luisita and Noynoy Aquino do not mix, like oil and water. No matter which way or how you try to place them together, still, they repel one another. They're like antonyms. One is the exact opposite of the other. Others put it in another way, which is that you can't write Noynoy Aquino and Hacienda Luisita in a single sentence without committing a syntactical error of the unforgivable kind. All of these stem from the idea that Noynoy, whose genes carry the same kind of those of the Cojuangco clan, will walk and talk like the oligarchs who have thrived on the sweat and toil of the farmers, and eventually disposing them to the sidelines as if they have never existed at all. Well, I can't blame them for thinking that way. You carry the legacy of your parents owing largely to your bloodline, you also have to carry the ghosts of the past that continue to haunt your ascendants today, more particularly with Cory Aquino.
Cory's brainchild, the CARP or Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, was a double-edged sword. While it did help a lot of farmers on one hand, it also went in vain on the other. While it granted some lands to those who tilled them for ages before, it also awarded some other lands to the wealthy who found measures to circumvent the law. More recently, Hacienda Luisita was yet again hounded by a social ill that remains restless even until today. That happened in November 16, 2004, when hundreds of sugar plantation workers stormed to the gates of the Hacienda and began to wage a strike in the hopes of settling a labor dispute, one that finds its roots from having the workers ripped off of their rightful claim to decent wages. Afternoon came and a horde of policemen and soldiers were dispatched to the Hacienda, apparently to disperse the protesters. But things swiftly turned from horrible to horrid. After shots were heard rippling across the mass of people, twelve picketers and two children were sent to eternal silence. To this day, justice remains to be served.
And to this day, the landless tenants are still fighting tooth and nail for the patches of earth they have learned to treat as extensions of their very being, if not the reason for life itself.
So why bet on Noynoy this coming national elections when one fears that he will simply nudge the rotten issue of his clan's landed estate? Well, for one thing, the fear should not be there in the first place. The fear is mistaken, or misplaced. The fear is unfounded, or unsound. These, for one good reason.
It is patent right smack in the beginning that Noynoy did not intend to run because he just felt like doing so. In fact, it was the people who pushed him to rise up to the challenge. He thereafter waited for the call to mount, one voice adding more to the ones that went before it, and seized it when the moment was ripe for the taking. As the turn of events would have it, he now finds himself wedged in the thicket of public clamor, which is no less than a veritable sign of the people's aggression over the kind of leadership that we have today. We want things to change, from a state of injustice to the exact opposite of all things defiled. To fulfill that desire is to rally behind someone who will not owe his being president from the wealthy few who charged his fat campaign finances to their bank accounts. To fulfill that desire is to rally behind someone who will owe his being president from those who, despite being poor in body but rich in soul, made the running far less expensive but far more valuable. From the way things stand, Noynoy does not need 3 billion pesos, or somewhere close to that, to earn his way to the Palace. He only needs 40 million voices, or somewhere close to that, to find his way to destiny.
And when he's already there, he has nowhere to go but to confront those millions of voices who will demand from him the reasons why they voted him to office. Of course, one can say that Villar, or whoever, will do the same thing under the same circumstance. But what will set Noynoy a wide mile apart from Villar, or whoever, is Noynoy's machinery, which is a whole army of volunteers. That is proof of how one thing reinforces the other. Noynoy will have to expect the force of those who volunteered and voted for him to push him face-to-face with the mass of social maladies. Those who volunteered and voted for him will have to expect the force of Noynoy to pull them to his aid. After all, these are how you make things happen. There's never a one-way road in the larger scheme of rebuilding a nation. Give and receive. Or, like boxing, it's way better to give than to receive.
That can't get any truer than the plight of the farmers in Hacienda Luisita. Noynoy is compelled by the circumstances to finally give the farmers what is due to them within his capacity as chief executive. Once up there, Noynoy can no longer avail of any convenient excuse to shrug off the Hacienda issue. He being the top man, and he being a kin of the lords of the landed estate, he can look no other way but directly at the mess in the Hacienda. Wherever he may roam, there is no escaping the urgent need for him to hammer the last nail and deliver the promise of CARP. Failure to do exactly just that is not an option. It will be one tough ordeal, knowing how family bonds are the most difficult to cut through.
Why be afraid to have Noynoy, a Cojuangco, as the leader of this country? Being a Cojuangco should be reason for us to all the more push for Noynoy. That way, the problems besetting the hacienda will never go forgotten. For as long as Noynoy is up there, we have someone to constantly remind ourselves of the yoke that burdens us and the obvious response to that. And we have someone to constantly shake, Noynoy being a fruit of the Cojuangco tree, or something to that effect. Or owing largely to the fact that he knows where he is coming from, or better still, that we know where he is coming from. That's reason enough why he should be the one up there if part and parcel of what we want is to finally resolve the Hacienda Luisita conflict.
It will be the first source of the scourge. It will be the first root of hostility or defiance against his command. It will be his baptism of fire.
Cory's brainchild, the CARP or Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, was a double-edged sword. While it did help a lot of farmers on one hand, it also went in vain on the other. While it granted some lands to those who tilled them for ages before, it also awarded some other lands to the wealthy who found measures to circumvent the law. More recently, Hacienda Luisita was yet again hounded by a social ill that remains restless even until today. That happened in November 16, 2004, when hundreds of sugar plantation workers stormed to the gates of the Hacienda and began to wage a strike in the hopes of settling a labor dispute, one that finds its roots from having the workers ripped off of their rightful claim to decent wages. Afternoon came and a horde of policemen and soldiers were dispatched to the Hacienda, apparently to disperse the protesters. But things swiftly turned from horrible to horrid. After shots were heard rippling across the mass of people, twelve picketers and two children were sent to eternal silence. To this day, justice remains to be served.
And to this day, the landless tenants are still fighting tooth and nail for the patches of earth they have learned to treat as extensions of their very being, if not the reason for life itself.
So why bet on Noynoy this coming national elections when one fears that he will simply nudge the rotten issue of his clan's landed estate? Well, for one thing, the fear should not be there in the first place. The fear is mistaken, or misplaced. The fear is unfounded, or unsound. These, for one good reason.
It is patent right smack in the beginning that Noynoy did not intend to run because he just felt like doing so. In fact, it was the people who pushed him to rise up to the challenge. He thereafter waited for the call to mount, one voice adding more to the ones that went before it, and seized it when the moment was ripe for the taking. As the turn of events would have it, he now finds himself wedged in the thicket of public clamor, which is no less than a veritable sign of the people's aggression over the kind of leadership that we have today. We want things to change, from a state of injustice to the exact opposite of all things defiled. To fulfill that desire is to rally behind someone who will not owe his being president from the wealthy few who charged his fat campaign finances to their bank accounts. To fulfill that desire is to rally behind someone who will owe his being president from those who, despite being poor in body but rich in soul, made the running far less expensive but far more valuable. From the way things stand, Noynoy does not need 3 billion pesos, or somewhere close to that, to earn his way to the Palace. He only needs 40 million voices, or somewhere close to that, to find his way to destiny.
And when he's already there, he has nowhere to go but to confront those millions of voices who will demand from him the reasons why they voted him to office. Of course, one can say that Villar, or whoever, will do the same thing under the same circumstance. But what will set Noynoy a wide mile apart from Villar, or whoever, is Noynoy's machinery, which is a whole army of volunteers. That is proof of how one thing reinforces the other. Noynoy will have to expect the force of those who volunteered and voted for him to push him face-to-face with the mass of social maladies. Those who volunteered and voted for him will have to expect the force of Noynoy to pull them to his aid. After all, these are how you make things happen. There's never a one-way road in the larger scheme of rebuilding a nation. Give and receive. Or, like boxing, it's way better to give than to receive.
That can't get any truer than the plight of the farmers in Hacienda Luisita. Noynoy is compelled by the circumstances to finally give the farmers what is due to them within his capacity as chief executive. Once up there, Noynoy can no longer avail of any convenient excuse to shrug off the Hacienda issue. He being the top man, and he being a kin of the lords of the landed estate, he can look no other way but directly at the mess in the Hacienda. Wherever he may roam, there is no escaping the urgent need for him to hammer the last nail and deliver the promise of CARP. Failure to do exactly just that is not an option. It will be one tough ordeal, knowing how family bonds are the most difficult to cut through.
Why be afraid to have Noynoy, a Cojuangco, as the leader of this country? Being a Cojuangco should be reason for us to all the more push for Noynoy. That way, the problems besetting the hacienda will never go forgotten. For as long as Noynoy is up there, we have someone to constantly remind ourselves of the yoke that burdens us and the obvious response to that. And we have someone to constantly shake, Noynoy being a fruit of the Cojuangco tree, or something to that effect. Or owing largely to the fact that he knows where he is coming from, or better still, that we know where he is coming from. That's reason enough why he should be the one up there if part and parcel of what we want is to finally resolve the Hacienda Luisita conflict.
It will be the first source of the scourge. It will be the first root of hostility or defiance against his command. It will be his baptism of fire.
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