Majority of prelates want full land reform by 2014–not 2016

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma. https://www.cbcponline.net/

The president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Thursday said that the majority of the prelates supported peasant demands that the agrarian reform program be completed as mandated under the law in two years, not in four years according to a new Malacañang timetable.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma said that 38 of the 100-member conference had signed the letter prepared by the Church requesting a dialogue between President Benigno Aquino and farmers marching on Malacañang Friday to press demands for the full implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) before its expiration in 2014.

The letter slammed Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes for “consistently underperforming.”

“We are in solidarity with the farmers in this regard. Because of time constraints, only 38 bishops were able to affix their signatures. I believe we could be more,” Palma said in an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas.

“The tenor of our letter is that we’re just reminding the government to implement the law on agrarian reform,” he explained, adding that the full implementation of Carper—CARP with Extension and Reforms—was talked about and adopted during the National Rural Congress attended by prelates five years ago.

Malacañang has been saying over the past two days  that Mr. Aquino is committed to seeing the program through before he steps down in 2016.

Some 5,000 farmers from the provinces and their supporters have converged in Manila for the rally outside Malacañang today. Several hundred of them have marched all the way from Mindanao and Negros Occidental province since last Friday, taking ferries to Manila and Batangas City.

Anticorruption drive

Palma said it was not enough that the Aquino administration only run after “big people” in the drive against graft and corruption.

He said it should also pay attention to “small people who are victims, who are innocent and who are longing for their rights.”

“We pray that the administration and the government should also give attention to their demands. They have somewhat analyzed that in this administration, they haven’t heard much about agrarian reform. President Aquino had mentioned it but the promise to really implement it [hasn’t been met so the farmers are doing their marches] in the hope something could happen,” he said.

Palma was also asked about the farmers’ apprehension that the Carper program would be not be completed in 2014.

“The farmers have reason to be apprehensive if the performance is almost very limited, very minimal. I wish we could show them (results) and I wish for a straight-from-the-heart and sincere dialogue and implementation of the program,” he said.

Mr. Aquino has designated several of his Cabinet secretaries to meet the farmers today, but Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chair of the CBCP-National Secretariat for Social Action who helped prepare the letter to Mr. Aquino, said in an interview with reporters yesterday that the farmers wanted to speak directly to the President and wait for his arrival from his overseas trips.

Aquino assurance

“Our farmers want to hear the declaration from the President, clearly from his own mouth—and not from his spokespersons. That he will say that he will really finish the program because it is important to his administration. That it’s a pro-poor program which he will implement because it is in accordance with the law,” Pabillo said.

He disputed Malacañang’s claim that the Carper implementation sped up under the Aquino administration and that over 100,000 hectares of farmland had been distributed.

“We won’t bicker about numbers because we also make our own checking. Maybe their numbers are only in their folders. I don’t know if it’s true. Even if we say it’s true, it’s still the lowest [in terms of hectares distributed]. But we won’t argue if it’s the lowest or the highest because we will check their numbers. But still, the government has to fulfill Carper and there should be enough budget [for the acquisition of farmlands] and there should be support for the farmers,” he said.

Pabillo also criticized the President’s pledge to complete Carper by the end of his term.

“Why 2016? The law ends in 2014,” he said. “We still have two years. Just give [the program] enough budget, make a verbal declaration [to complete the program] and speed up the resolution of the agrarian reform cases that have been languishing,” he said.

“The officials who did not do their jobs should be fired and replaced—that’s what the President should do to complete land distribution.”