Farmers barricade DAR, force suspension of hearing

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Protesting farmers on Tuesday forced the cancellation of a public congressional hearing on proposals to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program by barricading the gates at the Department of Agrarian Reform.

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) declared the “peasants’ barricade” a success after the public hearing by the Congressional Oversight Committee on Agrarian Reform (COCAR) at the DAR offices in Quezon City had to be called off.

The protesters had set up bamboos with barbed wire to block off the DAR’s main gates to derail what the group described as “a bogus public hearing” on House Bill House Bill 4296 and Senate Bill 2188, both seeking to extend the CARP by another five years.

The CARP is to expire on June 30.

At about 10 a.m. it was announced that the COCAR had cancelled the meeting due to the barricade.

KMP leaders said the CARP extension bills were “an insult to the millions of farmers who fall victims to CARP-sponsored land-grabbing, forced displacements, and agrarian-related killings.”

The group’s secretary general, Antonio Flores, said the COCAR public hearing was “bogus” because “farmers do not have a genuine voice and representation and were not invited in the so-called public hearing.”

“It is a blatant maneuver by the COCAR to railroad the HB 4296 and SB 2188,” Flores said.

The KMP said the CARP not only failed in breaking the monopoly of big landlords and foreign corporations over vast tracts of lands, but consciously favored big landlords and denied farmers their rights over the land.

CARP “has intensified landlessness among farmers and paved the way for continuous landgrabbing across the country by big local and foreign agribusinesses, agricultural transnational corporations, and real estate giants,” the KMP said.

“Yet, after more than a quarter of a century of injustice to the peasants, we are now being forced to mull over an extension of this disgustingly sham land reform. Extending CARP even for a single minute or second is nothing but pure madness,” Flores said.

In June 1988, the government of then President Corazon Aquino enacted the CARP through Republic Act 6657 seeking a more equitable distribution of agricultural land to farmers and farm workers.

Subsequent amendments in Congress extended it until 2014.

But due to concerns about the DAR’s low land distribution output, bills were filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate to extend the CARP by another five years.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio De Los Reyes earlier said he welcomed the proposal but did not think it was necessary.

RELATED STORIES

Aquino asked to back extension of CARP coverage

Court cases delay CARP in Quezon

Farmers rally for repeal of local anti-CARP law