[ Manila Bulletin Online ] March 29, 2008
By EDMER F. PANESA
Speaker Prospero C. Nograles said yesterday he is prepared to support efforts in the House of Representatives to extend the life of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and plug loopholes that weaken the program.
Nograles said there should be no more conversions of agricultural lands in the proposed law extending CARP, which is set to expire on June 30 this year, and instead allot areas for corporate farming.
This time around, he said, CARP should be used as an opportunity to ensure food security instead of giving rise to more subdivisions and golf courses.
The Speaker noted that among the defects of the CARP is that "it shrunk our farmlands because even arable lands were converted into residential areas, golf courses, and industrial areas."
"We can extend CARP only if conversions will no longer be allowed and allow the promotion of corporate farming," Nograles stressed.
In 1988, the government, through Republic Act No. 6657, began implementing CARP.
The law sought to distribute lands to about 8.5 million landless peasants, share tenants and agricultural workers "to liberate them from the clutches of landlordism and poverty."
As the 20-year-old program expires in June, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the government agency assigned to implement CARP, reported that there are still two million hectares of land which are yet to be placed under the program and it will take another 10 years before these lands can be fully distributed to farmer beneficiaries.
Seven million hectares have already been placed under CARP benefiting about four million farmers, DAR said.
There are at least two measures (House Bill Nos. 328 and 3369) filed with the House seeking to extend the CARP law for a period of five years from 2008 to 2013. Both measures are being taken up for consideration by the House Committee on Agriculture, chaired by Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra.
Mitra, one of the advocates of CARP law extension, welcomed Nograles’ support.
"We are elated by the support of the Speaker even if, like him ,we were victims of wrong selection of beneficiaries to land carved from our families," Mitra said.
According to Nograles, there have been many failures in the implementation of the CARP because there was no mechanism that should have ensured the productivity for farmerbeneficiaries.
"From what I’ve gathered, many farmer-beneficiaries of agrarian reform used their seed capital to buy new TVs and refrigerators instead of using the money to modernize their farms," Nograles lamented.
________________________________________________________________
