Wasted opportunity?

From Rappler:

In a historic vote, the Supreme Court of the Philippines voted 14-0 to reaffirm its ruling ordering Hacienda Luisita land to be distributed to farmer beneficiaries. The Hacienda Luisita estate and sugar plantation belongs to the Cojuangco side of President Benigno Aquino III and has been the subject of a decades-long, bitter and bloody legal dispute. President Aquino divested shares in Hacienda Luisita before taking office in 2010, but Chief Justice Renato Corona has said that the President has pushed for his impeachment because of the court’s rulings favoring farmers involved in the case. 

While it can be argued that SC Chief Justice Renato Corona may have ruled against the Cojuangcos to spite President Noynoy Aquino (Corona is, after all, a midnight appointee of former President Gloria Arroyo and is being suspected of using his position to serve the disgraced former President's interests), PNoy should still take this opportunity to end the long-running Hacienda Luisita issue and distribute its land to its rightful owners, the Cojuangco family a.k.a. the President's relatives landless farm workers. CJ Corona will obviously earn a lot of political brownie points for this but the decision is still the right one and PNoy should do every single thing possible to make sure that the poor farmers get what is due them. Even Congressman Edcel Lagman (a former Gloria ally) is considering this a triumph of the late President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's (also PNoy's mother) Comprehensive Agrarian Reform program (CARP). The SC's ruling of a lower valuation for Hacienda Luisita also benefits the government cost-wise since they would be compensating the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) at a much lower amount (they shouldn't even be compensated anymore since they've benefited from it for years at the expense of their farmers). 

PNoy, who linked poverty to widespread corruption and repeatedly encouraged the public to tread the "daang matuwid" during his 2010 electoral campaign, should not only focus his sights on the likes of CJ Corona (who is himself suspected of having ill-gotten wealth and is currently on trial himself for alleged betrayal of public trust and violation of the Constitution). PNoy should grow a political backbone, tell his relatives to buzz off and instead encourage them to take the "straight path". I hope our dear President doesn't pass up on his "golden chance at greatness" and also take this opportunity to honor his mother and deliver on his campaign promise.