PRESIDENT Duterte ordered a moratorium on the conversion of agricultural lands during his first Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) meeting on Monday.
Mr. Duterte also agreed to condone the penalties on the arrears of farmer-beneficiaries who had fallen behind on their amortization payments to the state-run Land Bank of the Philippines for the land awarded to them under the agrarian reform program.
The two policies were proposed by Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, who had asked the President to convene the PARC as soon as possible.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said the moratorium on land use conversion and the condonation of bank penalties would provide a respite to “tens of thousands of farmers who are facing threats of eviction” due to projects in agricultural lands and the Land Bank foreclosure.
The KMP cited as examples land use conversion cases at Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, Hacienda Looc in Batangas and the agricultural lands affected by the MRT-7 project in Bulacan.
Highest body
The PARC is the highest policy- and decision-making body for agrarian reform matters and disputes. The President presides as chair, with the agrarian reform secretary as vice chair.
The PARC was never convened during the term of President Benigno Aquino III, whose relatives own the Hacienda Luisita sugar plantation.
KMP chair, party-list rep
Mariano, former KMP chair and party-list representative for the peasant sector, has said his priorities include filing cases against illegal and premature land conversion; reviewing agribusiness, leasehold and stock distribution arrangements between landowners and tenants; and seeking to condone bank penalties on the arrears of farmer-beneficiaries who are still paying amortization.
Mariano had said the President needed to convene the PARC in order to resolve with finality agrarian reform cases that had been on appeal before the council for years.
The 59-year-old veteran peasant leader has vowed that no farmer, whether an agrarian reform beneficiary or not, would be ejected from his land under his watch.