Agrarian reform chief’s resignation sought over planned shutdown of key units

Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes

MANILA, Philippines — Employees of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on Thursday called for the resignation of Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio Delos Reyes for allegedly serving as a willing accomplice in the “dismemberment” of his department.

The DAR Employees Association and the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance said the secretary should resign for refusing to support the deletion of three assailed items in the proposed DAR budget submitted to Congress.

The groups demanded that Delos Reyes clarify his position on the looming transition plan that was included in the proposed department budget, amid fears among the employees of a mass layoff.

In a statement, the groups alleged that De Los Reyes had made a “complete turnaround” from his earlier position supporting the removal of the three items, the most contentious of which involved DAR’s transition plan.

That item provides for the transfer of services under the program beneficiary development (PBD) component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper) to the Department of Agriculture (DA), on June 30, 2013, “a year before Carper is supposed to wind down,” the groups said.

PBD provides support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries, and under the assailed provision, this role will be assumed by the DA.

The second item involves the transfer of DAR funds to the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Program (AFMP), while the third provides that the amounts appropriated for Carper and AFMP shall be released by the DBM directly to the various implementing agencies.

Delos Reyes, they said, was originally in favor of removing the items “because he considers it unconstitutional and that both he and Secretary Proceso Alcala of the DA were never consulted by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad about the much criticized provisions.”

But he “vacillated to a direct question by Congressman Rufus Rodriguez during a plenary budget deliberation,” the groups said.

“Asked whether he supports the initiative by an initial 82 congressmen who signed a Manifestation for the Deletion of Item No. 5, the DAR Secretary refused and instead presented amendments to the provisions, which Rodriguez promptly dismissed,” they said.

They accused Delos Reyes of being an accessory “if not a major player” in the dismemberment of DAR, as well as “throwing thousands of DAR employees out in the streets.”

Delos Reyes earlier admitted that his department had submitted to the DBM a “transition plan that would streamline the personnel complement of the DAR.”

But he said the transition plan should not be a cause for alarm and allayed fears that 9,000 DAR employees would lose their jobs. He said it was designed not to collapse the bureaucracy but to augment personnel in mission-critical areas while trimming down on non-critical positions in the run-up to 2014, the year for the expected completion of land distribution.

“It does not involve any forced retirement, retrenchment, or layoffs,” Delos Reyes said.