THE militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Thursday urged Hacienda Luisita farmers to scrutinize the Department of Agrarian Reform’s (DAR) preliminary list of beneficiaries.

“Hacienda Luisita farmers would deeply scrutinize the DAR’s so-called preliminary list of beneficiaries. They should not accept the DAR’s list hook, line and sinker,” KMP deputy secretary general Randall Echanis said in a statement.

According to KMP, DAR has drawn up an initial list of 5,365 farm workers who will become beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita. Aside from those in the list of preliminary beneficiaries, another 1,221 farm workers have been placed on a provisional list due to deficiencies in documents that would prove the validity of their claim as Luisita beneficiaries.

The group has been questioning the DAR’s so-called ‘verification process’ and is demanding the DAR to produce the 1989 list of beneficiaries that also served as Hacienda Luisita Inc.’s bases for giving “worthless stock certificates during the stock distribution option regime.”

The KMP said that the DAR’s highly questionable verification process is all in accordance with the Cojuangcos move to bloat the number of beneficiaries, further reduce the size of land for distribution, sow confusion and disunity among farm workers, and eventually put their dummies and loyalists as so-called beneficiaries.