SDO

Tracing back from the history, it is well noted that the legality of Stock
Distribution Option (SDO) is being assailed only based from the premise,
according to the Hacienda Luisita Incorporation (HLI) farmers themselves,
that HLI was not giving the farmers dividends and the benefits due them,
and not because SDO is illegal per se.

SDO got its backbone from the CARP law itself, particularly in Section 29,
which provides that in case it is not economically feasible and sound to
divide the land, then it shall be owned collectively by the worker-
beneficiaries who shall form a workers’ cooperative or association. The
farmers and the landowners are allowed to resort to alternative means
where they could divide the land feasibly and more properly. And one of the
best alternative means which they chose was none other than the SDO,
which the legality is now being questioned in this case.

Like what was mentioned, the farmers-worker-beneficiaries had chosen the

SDO. Besides, the Memorandum of Agreement clearly gave them the option
to stay with the SDO or to choose productive agricultural lands. And we
should take note that these farmers who chose SDO before are the same
farmers who’s assailing its legality.

The big question now is why majority of the HLI farmers voted in favor of the
SDO before? The answer could be taken from the fact that SDO could give
them a better life, a convenient life than Land Distribution Option (LDO)
could provide. These farmers voted for the SDO because they know that
maintaining a land, maintaining the business of having a land is not that
easy. And they know that maybe if they choose to be separated from the
corporation, their future is doomed. It is no longer unusual for us to hear
news that some of the Agrarian Reform farmers-beneficiaries who chose LDO
have squandered or mismanage the land they received from the said land
reform program.

SDO could provide more benefits than LDO. It is because distributing the
land to each individual farmers will make HLI unproductive for the reason
that the managerial and control over such lands is divided among individual
tillers, such a scenario may lead to conflicting interest of the different
farmers which would lead to the decrease of production outputs and
bankruptcy of the corporation. And at the end of the day, the farmers would
realize that by choosing LDO, they chose to be bondage of poverty once
more.

SDO could also provide industrial peace which could make the development
of the hacienda easier and faster because management is governed by a
corporation and not by individuals. Besides, in SDO, farmers are given the
opportunity to have managerial control over the HLI, and such empowers the
farmers to act as if they are the real owners of the land, and therefore
equalizes the imbalance between the owners and the tillers.

As a conclusion, the farmers made the right the decision in choosing SDO
over LDO because in LDO, the physical quality of the land would be
minimized, the management of the farm would not be that easy,
capitalization for the success of their venture would not be that easy, and in
the end, these could lead to bankruptcy. And in SDO, land easy to assign,
easy to manage, easy to convey, easy to cede, and easier to succeed.