Bishop Nereo Odchimar. INQUIRER file photo
The largest multisectoral gathering since the late President Corazon Aquino launched agrarian reform in 1988 has expressed dismay at her son’s failure to pursue her centerpiece social justice program to ease poverty.
A “Manifesto for Agrarian Reform” called on President Benigno Aquino III to send “a clear signal” that his administration is “sincere and serious in its commitment to enforce and complete” his mother’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Bishop Nereo P. Odchimar, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and 19 of its senior members signed the manifesto, along with representatives of over a hundred farmer, labor, academic, religious and civil society groups.
A copy of the manifesto was sent to President Aquino before he addressed on October 17 the opening of the three-day National Anti-Poverty Commission’s Sectoral Assembly at the Philippine International Convention Center crammed with over 1,000 sectoral representatives.
The document said that the “nonresolution” of the long pending case for the distribution of Hacienda Luisita, the sugar plantation owned by the President’s family, was “a sword at the heart of CARP.”
Mr. Aquino has said repeatedly that he had divested himself of his interest in the hacienda and had no say in its disposition.
“We fully supported him in the 2010 elections but he did not even mention CARP,” said Alberto Jaime, president of Task Force Mapalad, an NGO actively supporting land redistribution.
“He should not wait for us to take up arms,” Jaime told reporters.
Fears that the Aquino administration is not intent on pursuing the full implementation of the law extending CARP with reforms (Carper) emerged after Malacañang failed to provide adequate funding for the program.
Personnel cutback
Instead, the Palace directed the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to start reducing personnel in preparation ostensibly for the winding down of its activities.
The Carper law was enacted in 2009. It extends the Corazon Aquino program for another five years until June 2014 and allocates P150 billion for its implementation.
But the program has been underfunded and distribution of the remaining 1 million hectares of prime agricultural estates, including Hacienda Luisita, has fallen below targets.
Malacañang’s budget allocation for DAR for 2012 of P18 billion was way below DAR’s proposal of P30 billion. A complementary P4.8-billion budget allocation to provide socialized credit for land reform beneficiaries was also junked.
Bishop Broderick Pabillo, national director of the CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action, said the “Manifesto for Agrarian Reform” sent to Mr. Aquino called on the President to take a direct hand in addressing the problems which he suggested could have been exacerbated by his “conspicuous silence” on the issue.
“The poor performance of DAR in land acquisition and distribution reflects the absence of a clear signal and support of the President for agrarian reform,” Pabillo said, pointing out that the department distributed only 140,000 ha as opposed to its target of 200,000 ha for 2011.
“The President is currently enjoying a positive trust rating,” he said. “Instead of basking in his popularity, he should put his positive ratings to good use by attending to the concerns of landless farmers and other victims of human rights.”
Misconception
“There is a prevailing misconception in Congress that agrarian reform will be terminated by 2014,” said Akbayan Representative Kaka Bag-ao.
“But the constitutional mandate will not end by 2014. Only the budget will expire, not the program. In other words, all the other components, like the resolution of agrarian disputes and the provision of support services will go beyond 2014,” Bag-ao said.
She lamented that the government had failed to give sufficient support to farmers but stressed that the Department of Agriculture could not assume responsibility for this because its credit scheme was not socialized and beyond the capacity of farmers to repay.
“Agrarian reform is the fruit of the sacrifices of the farmers. This is his mother’s legacy to the poor,” said Evangeline Mendoza, head of the farmer’s group picketing the Yulo Estate in Canlubang, Laguna province, to press demands for the redistribution of the estate.
Christian Monsod, a convenor of the agrarian reform movement, said the President’s lack of political will had triggered wide-ranging demoralization among DAR employees.
“If agrarian reform will be terminated in 2014, they are already looking for other jobs and fearful of being sued by landowners whose cases they handled,” he said.
Monsod said that a quarter century after the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution ousted the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed Corazon Aquino, “the state of inequalities is still the same.”
“Unless government intervenes, the poor will be left behind,” said Monsod, a member of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution mandating “the just distribution of all agricultural land.”
Urgent needs
The five-page manifesto appealed to Mr. Aquino to address urgently the needs and requirements of CARP by:
- Conveying a clear signal to the coequal branches of government and to the public that the current leadership is sincere and serious in its commitment to enforce and complete CARP as mandated by the Constitution and the law with priority on large estates and commercial farms—banana, sugar, rubber, coconut—and on provinces with large land balances.
- Clarifying that the deadline of June 30, 2014, is only for the funding for new acquisitions of land but that other activities such as support services, program beneficiaries development, agrarian justice, and the completion of the process to acquire and distribute lands with notices of coverage, will continue.
- Clearly establishing funds and other sources for all of the DAR requirements.
- Encouraging private-public partnerships by providing incentives and guarantees to financial institutions.
- Supporting the “reenergizing, retooling and rational redeployment of the DAR personnel to maximize their capacity to implement the bigger demands of the program.
- Upholding social justice with finality in the case of Hacienda Luisita.
Frustrations
The manifesto said farmers appreciated Mr. Aquino’s support of the move by the solicitor general and the DAR to ask for a categorical ruling from the Supreme Court on the long-pending Hacienda Luisita case in favor of the farmers.
“But the frustrations of the years and their continuing destitution call for a more decisive initiative to cause a distribution of the land without need of a Supreme Court decision.”
Asked for comment, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said that the administration had been distributing lands subject to agrarian reform and declined to elaborate.
As for the hacienda, Lacierda said the case was pending in the high tribunal. “We can’t act on this matter,” he said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño