In trying to explain the ordeal of impeachment that he and his family were subjected to by President Aquino and the administration, former chief justice Renato Corona bluntly declared that it was the Hacienda Luisita issue that was the principal reason for his impeachment and for the unusual maneuvers (fair and foul) taken by the President to secure his conviction by the Senate.

In the Supreme Court’s en banc decision on the Hacienda Luisita case, which was handed down on Nov. 22, 2011, and which associate justice Presbitero Velasco penned, the high court ordered the total distribution of the hacienda to 6,296 registered farm worker-beneficiaries. The tribunal ordered and pegged the just compensation to Hacienda Luisita, Inc. based on the hacienda’s market price in 1989. It also ordered that the P1.33 billion proceeds of the sale of some 500 hectares of the land be returned to the farmers.