IT’s now 10 years and three days since the Nov. 16, 2004 Hacienda Luisita Massacre. That was the 10th day after farmworkers, members of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU), and sugar mill workers, members of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), began their “Welgang Bayan” (People’s Strike).
Attempts of the Luisita security forces to get the strikers to disband did not work. Then government police and soldiers arrived. These forces did what feudal culture-minded armed men in uniform eventually do. They went into bloody strike dispersal mode. They killed seven farmers and two children. They injured hundreds. Survivors and the militant farmworkers’ union members directly blame President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd for causing the violence and want him to be held criminally accountable.
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