Farmers divided over land reform law extension
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—Advocates of agrarian reform are divided over whether to end this government program that has seen two extensions since it was launched in 1987.
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has objected to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper) and is leading a march by farmers to Congress a day before the hearing of the House committee on agrarian reform on Wednesday.
But the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (Sara), which is also scheduled to stage a protest on Tuesday, wants Carper to continue beyond its June 2014 deadline.
Sara, in a statement, said the “dire state” of the national land reform program was “ultimately a result of the [Department of Agrarian Reform’s] halfhearted commitment to act decisively for the interests of its primary constituency—small, landless farmers.”
Farmers from Bulacan, Rizal and Batangas provinces are camping out at the DAR office before heading to Congress, KMP chair Rafael Mariano said in a statement.
He said the protest actions were meant to send a strong message to Congress and the Aquino administration that the “peasantry had enough of the sham CARP.”
The agrarian reform program was initiated by then President Corazon Aquino, the late mother of the incumbent president, on June 10, 1988, as the centerpiece of a social justice program to lift farmers from poverty and eliminate one of the causes of a lingering communist insurgency.
The program, initially set for 10 years, was extended for 10 years, or up to 2008. In 2009, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed the Carper law (Republic Act No. 9700), extending the program for another five years.
In an earlier interview, Anthony Parungao, DAR undersecretary for legal affairs, said Section 30 of the law states that land acquisition and distribution may proceed for landholdings with pending proceedings even after June 2014.
The DAR, in its website, said it had covered 2,321,064 hectares of private agricultural lands, 1,727,054 ha of nonprivate agricultural lands and installed in these 2.4 million beneficiaries under CARP from 1987 to June 2009.
Under Carper from July 2009 to December 2012, DAR said it distributed 196,055 ha of private agricultural lands and 209,151 ha of nonprivate agricultural lands for 210,586 beneficiaries.
Mariano said the 26 years of CARP and Carper were the “biggest disaster to the lives of the Filipino peasantry.”
Congress, he said, approved Carper although CARP failed to break land monopoly.
Mariano said vast landholdings remained intact, including Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province, which is owned by the relatives of President Aquino; Hacienda Looc and Hacienda Roxas in Batangas; Hacienda Yulo in Laguna province; several haciendas in the Bondoc Peninsula area in Quezon province; estates of businessman Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. in Negros; and plantations of multinational food companies in Mindanao.
Mariano said the DAR allowed land lease deals with local and foreign agribusiness corporations, turning agrarian reform beneficiaries into salaried farm workers.
“The bogus CARP was not meant to break land monopoly and was instead implemented only to appease peasant unrest in the [provinces] and to create an illusion of land reform,” he said.—Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon, and Delfin Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon
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