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<img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources/roppongi-street-tokyo-sm.webp" alt="Roppongi Street, Tokyo property controversy" />
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(Filipnos protest against midnight sale of Philippine property in Tokyo, Tokyo on November 8, 2009.  Another attempt this time by the Arroyo administration)
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The families were complaining, not just about imminent eviction, but also harassment and bribery to make them sign quitclaims or waivers of their residency rights; that they were not being permitted to repair their homes; that most of them had been retrenched or terminated from their jobs in the hacienda; and that in the barangays of Balete, Central and Texas, electric power was cut off, garbage collection services were stopped and the construction of toilets suspended.
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The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) not just brought bitterness to the families of the "workers" (formerly tenant-farmers) of Hacienda Luisita, but was also cleverly used as an excuse to generate popular pressure to strip the Marcoses and their associates of all assets under the generic category of "ill-gotten wealth".
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CARP which is President Corazon C. Aquino's Proclamation 131 created a five-year agrarian-reform fund of P50 billion to be raised partly from ill-gotten wealth received through the Presidential Commission on Good Government. To get funding for and from the CARP, peasants were, thus, expected to support the regime in its hunt for the Marcos wealth.
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Worse, the Aquino administration used the CARP to justify a highly reprehensible deal. This was Mrs. Aquino's attempt to dispose of certain prime properties in Tokyo and Kobe in Japan, which were acquired by the Philippines, as part of Japanese reparations for the death and injuries sustained by Filipinos during the Second World War.
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The foreign properties involved were a 3,179-square-meter lot on Roppongi Street in Tokyo, the 2,489.96-sq-m lot that was the site of the Philippine Chancery in Tokyo and two other prime lots in Kobe.
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Reacting, Mrs. Aquino's Vice President Doy Laurel said:
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"On the pretext of raising funds for the CARP, the Aquino administration, through the Asset Privatization Trust, decided to sell these properties through public bidding, starting with the Roppongi lot. This was accompanied by talks of a lot of money-changing hands. This was confirmed by an affidavit executed by lawyer Lupino Lazaro, which had been submitted to the Commission on Appointments.
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I immediately filed with the Supreme Court a petition for prohibition. ... In a precedent-setting decision promulgated on July 25, 1990, the Supreme Court sustained my petition ..."
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No doubt, Mrs. Aquino had authorized the sale of the Roppongi lot to Japanese property developers through Executive Order 296. As a result of the uproar that the proposed sale generated, an option to lease was initiated. But the Supreme Court ruled that by herself and without the concurrence of Congress through the passage of a law, President Aquino had no authority to dispose of the reparations properties through sale or lease.
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The Court held the lots to be property of the public domain and, thus inalienable, beyond the commerce of man, and not subject to contracts. Concurring with the majority, Justice Isagani Cruz wrote:
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"The respondents have failed to show the President's legal authority to sell the Roppongi property…. The Solicitor General was at best ambiguous, although I must add in fairness that this was not his fault. The fact is that there is no such authority. Legal expertise alone cannot conjure that statutory permission out of thin air…. The sale of the said property may be authorized only by Congress through a duly enacted statute, and there is no such law."
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Laurel lamented:
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"Cory had apparently become habitual in exercising dictatorial powers, while projecting herself all the time as a champion of democracy. In the Roppongi case, she presumed that she had the power to dispose of property of the public dominion. When that presumption was challenged in the parliament of public opinion, she remained unyielding until the Supreme Court overruled her." 
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This is the other side of the coin, the untold story of the "holier than thou" Cory Aquino administration "hailed as saint by the Filipino people."
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A saint, whose soldiers opened fire on poor peasants and farmers fighting for genuine land reform, in broad daylight to also mention, then invoked the immunity of the state to be held liable to such atrocities.
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A saint who broke her promise to the Filipinos by deliberately refusing to distribute any parcel of land to farmers of her sprawling hacienda, which, aside from encompassing vast plantations tilled by the blood and sweat of peasant workers, also became home to numerous horrific killing sprees.
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A saint, who, due to her vindictiveness, prevented the return of her archnemesis to this country, whether the man is dead or alive. That same man, albeit demonized as a tyrant and oppressor, stood firm on his order to not attack the massive crowd during the Edsa revolt, and regarded the saint's husband as a brother, even facilitating the latter's trip to the United States to undergo a heart surgery.
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<h3>
If this kind of person truly qualifies as a saint, heaven help us all.
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<b>Sources</b>:  
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The untold stories of Aquino human rights violation by Cecilio Arillo, March 21, 2016  <a href="https://goo.gl/1bcfpO" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Source">http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/</a>
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Protest against midnight sale of Philippine property in Tokyo, Arkibong Bayan, November 8, 2009, <a href="https://goo.gl/hWy37D" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Source">http://www.arkibongbayan.org/</a>
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<li>
Proclamation No. 131, s. 1987, <a href="https://goo.gl/gGjGQ5" class="news_link" target="_blank" title="Source">http://www.gov.ph/</a>
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Photo credit: http://www.arkibongbayan.org/
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Cory's CARP, hacienda Luisita, and the Roppongi Street, Tokyo property controversy