ROXAS CITY, Philippines -- Senator Gregorio Honasan has committed to support the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Honasan, who chairs the Senate committee on agrarian reform, said on Friday that committee members, Senator Loren Legarda and Senator Jose ?Jinggoy? Estrada, were amenable to a three-year extension of the program.

The committee led by Honasan conducted here its third and final consultative meeting on the proposed CARP extension on Friday that was attended by local officials, landowners, farmers, religious and community leaders.

He noted that even landowners did not oppose outright the CARP's extension.

Honasan said that the landowners only suggested some amendments to the CARP to improve the country's agriculture sector.

Lawyer Gil Marie Alba, legal counsel for Panay Federation of Sugarcane Farmers and Confederation of Sugarcane Producers in Negros Occidental, recommended that there should be no more compulsory acquisition of lands.

Alba suggested that land acquisition be limited to government lands and private lands voluntarily offered for sale or transfer.

He also urged government to observe just compensation in the valuation of land for acquisition.

But lawyer Lolita Quisumbing, a landowner from Capiz, said CARP failed to solve the problem of rural poverty and should not be extended.

Quisumbing noted that the government failed to provide CARP farmer-beneficiaries the support services they needed to attain good harvest.

"Farmers take the risk and loses, formerly borne by the landowners. This will explain why farmer-beneficiaries lease out, mortgage or sell their land holdings. Most of them, they become prey to loan sharks," she lamented.

In a 272-page report on CARP, the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) cited major issues concerning the program's implementation.

The GTZ, in its report, said the Department of Agrarian Reform concentrated mainly on land distribution, without considering viability of farming and support services.

Quisumbing also questioned the claim of the Department of Agrarian Reform that it had distributed almost 85 percent of the area covered by CARP.

"Then how come we have a rice crisis due to low productivity? How come poverty remains in rural areas?" she asked.