The height of Noynoy’s hypocrisy

EDITORIAL

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08/14/2010

Proof of the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy and again politically powerful Cojuangco-Aquino clan can be proven in a photograph of an out of job Hacienda Luisita farm worker, getting a measly P260 for having signed away his right to own the hacienda land and agreeing to retain the Stock Distribution Option (SDO), while another worker, a limping 76-year-old man was paid P347, the equivalent of his 2,400 shares in the Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI).

The reason the old man chose the SDO? He chose the SDO to be able to work again, because owning the land would not be enough.

What an injustice it is, for the poor to be reduced to selling their legal right for a few hundred pesos, which is peanuts to the Cojuangco-Aquinos, who know just the right but immoral and illegal buttons to push the poverty-stricken farm workers into submission and for a song.

Yet Noynoy Aquino pledged to give justice to all, when he is part and parcel of that illegal and immoral SDO, and part as well of the blatant bribery engaged in by the clan. He certainly knew what the clan was doing and what it is after.

Noynoy claims he owns merely 1 percent or so of HLI and that he will not interfere with the problem at HLI because he claims he won’t involve himself in an intra-corporate dispute. That is a pure hypocritical stand, and he and his boys in Malacañang know it.

Noynoy, like his mother before him, and like his hacendero relatives, want the SDO retained even if illegal. They want to keep the land, and continue shortchanging and exploiting further the poor workers.

Even during the campaign, as the issue hounded him, he and his yellow propagandists refused to answer these criticisms and charges.

Today he says he will not interfere in an intra-corporate dispute. What hypocrisy! That is hardly an intra-corporate dispute, as all these decades the Aquino-Cojuangcos have done nothing but to screw the poor farmers of their birthright. And Noynoy Aquino has the gall to claim that he is one with the poor? That he is a man of the masses?

Bribery is illegal, and what the HLI is doing by paying off workers with measly sums to get them to agree to the retention of the SDO bribery and this is against the law.

Bribery is a form of corruption and this corruption is being engaged in by Noynoy and his clan. Yet Noynoy’s campaign slogan is, if there is no corruption, there is no poverty. How can he expect to lead the nation into eliminating corruption, injustice and poverty when he and his clan engage in the very thing he claims to reform and eliminate? How can he erase poverty when he, by his hypocritical “neutral stand” in the Luisita problem, ensures the continued poverty of the farmers? How can Noynoy claim to be treading the “straight” and “righteous” path when he and his clan continue to cheat, lie and steal from the poor farmers while they are being coerced into selling their birthright for a few pesos that will not even give them a month’s meal?

The SDO is illegal, under the Agrarian Reform Law. It is his duty, as President of the Republic, to abide by his oath taken during his inauguration, to uphold the law and the law says that the SDO is illegal, yet he refuses to implement the law, not because the problem is about an intra-corporate dispute, but because Noynoy and the entire Aquino-Cojuangco clan never ever had any intention to give up the land.

Hacienda Luisita is all about the power and wealth of the Aquinos and Cojuangcos misusing these powerrs to exploit the poor.

Luisita was purchased through the influential peddling ways of the Yellows’ so-called hero, Ninoy Aquino, who was close to the late Ramon Magsaysay, complete with guarantees from the central bank and the Government Service Insurance System. When the farmers won their case against the clan, the malevolent fate intervened, placing an Aquino in power and position. Abusing her power, the claimed Yellow icon of democracy Cory Aquino, not only had her solicitor-general dismiss the case that had already been won by the farmers, but exempted Luisita from Agrarian Reform. With the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law passed, the same clan came up with the illegal SDO to evade the law.

An Aquino is again in power and position. To say that he is keeping neutral on the issue is the height of hypocrisy!

This sadly, is is the tale of a country and a nation where the rich always exploit the poor and keep them poor.

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