Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes: ‘Misfit’. Photo from www.dar.gov.ph/
MANILA, Philippines—Five months before the June 14, 2014, deadline for the distribution of agrarian reform lands, nine Catholic bishops have appealed to President Aquino to fire Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes and fast-track the distribution of land to farmers.
In a letter on Jan. 22, the bishops, led by Manila Auxillary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, asked President Aquino for an “overhaul” in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) leadership and pressed for swift action on the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper).
“Secretary Gil de los Reyes clearly does not fit the role of a transformational leader for the demanding task ahead for CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program),” the Catholic prelates said in a strongly-worded letter to the President.
The five-page letter enumerated how DAR allegedly failed to meet the target distribution of the CARP balance of 1.2 million hectares since the Carper law, the law extending the implementation of the 1963 agrarian reform code, was signed by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in August 2009.
“Even with these more modest targets, the speed with which NOCs (notices of coverage) have been issued by DAR continue to give us a deep cause for concern whether most remaining (and most resistant) agricultural landholdings will receive NOCs by that deadline,” the church leaders said.
From July 2010 to June 2013, DAR was only able to distribute 314,422 hectares of land against the original CARP balance of 1.2 million hectares, the bishops said.
The prelates described the pace by which the Carper was being implemented as “sluggish.”
“For instance, we brought to DAR’s attention last September 2012 the 9,915-hectare landholdings of Danding Cojuangco on Bugsuk-Pandanan islands in Palawan. No notice of coverage has been issued by the DAR to date,” they said.
The Catholic clergymen also raised the “underperformance” of DAR in handling cases of farmers’ groups affiliated to Sulong Carper, a coalition of 33 land reform advocates that are nongovernment organizations closely monitoring the implementation of Carper.
The signatories in the letter are: Pabillo, who is also national director of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace (Nassa); Bishop Rolando Tria Tirona, chair of the CBCP’s Episcocal Commission for Social Action, Justice and Peace and members Bishops Nereo Odchimar, John Du, Antonio Ledesma, Sofronio Bancud, Jose Advincula, Angelito Lampon and Martin Jumoad.
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