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29 bishops want 1.3 M hectares distributed

By Edu Punay
Thursday, April 3, 2008 [ philstar.com ]

Twenty-nine Catholic bishops, including six archbishops, have collectively asked Congress to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) while introducing reforms in the agrarian reform program directed at alleviating poverty and the looming food crisis in the country.

The bishops, led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, and Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo who is also Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president, appealed to Apayao Rep. Elias Bulut, chairman of the House committee on agrarian reform, for the passage of a “reformed” Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program (CARP) to
implement the agrarian reform law.

“We are writing to manifest our appeal to the honorable members of Congress, the urgency of passing a bill to extend CARP and institute progressive reforms that would truly benefit our poor farmers who remain landless,” the CBCP said in their letter.

“After twenty years, 1.3 million hectares of ‘CARPable’ lands remain undistributed, consisting mainly of large haciendas of those who have been resisting CARP from its inception,” they added.

Other signatories to the letter were Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, Balanga Bishop Socrates Villegas, Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra, Dumaguete Bishop John Du, Bayombong Bishop Ramon Villena, and Bukidnon Bishop Honesto Pacana.

“We fervently pray that agrarian reform, through a reformed CARP, be placed at the center of our country’s agricultural development, transformation and competitiveness,” they said.

No rice shortage

This new development overshadowed Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap’s declaration that there is no looming rice shortage in the country, saying the present production shows there is even more than enough supply for the country’s food requirements.

“There is no rice shortage. We have enough rice supply,” said Yap, who was in Isabela, the country’s major rice-producing province the other day, possibly encouraged by positive reports of higher yield there and in neighboring provinces.

His visit came after the relief of two National Food Authority (NFA) officials in the region over reports of rice hoarding as well as repackaging of NFA rice into commercial sacks for higher value.

Based on NFA statistics, Yap said that residents need not worry as far as rice supply is concerned as the government has enough buffer stocks to respond to any eventuality.

Besides, he said, the country is even anticipating a better rice yield this time of the year even before the stocks in various NFA warehouses could be emptied.

Yap said that the anticipated rice production from Nueva Ecija as well as Cagayan Valley’s four mainland provinces – Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and Cagayan – could ease any talks of rice shortage.

Yap’s pronouncement affirmed President Arroyo’s earlier statement during her visit to neighboring Nueva Vizcaya that Cagayan Valley already produced more than enough for the country’s rice needs at this time of year.

The President, also citing NFA reports, said that for the first quarter of this year alone, the region already produced 1.8 million metric tons of rice compared to only 2.7 million MT for the whole of last year.

Crackdown on hoarders

In San Fernando, Pampanga, the NFA has taken steps to discourage traders’ diversion of rice from the government by repacking one-kilo and two-kilo packs and making these available at the agency’s warehouse.

In La Union, the NFA regional office said they will directly deliver the rice, now repacked in plastic bags, to various accredited outlets and ensure that the supply will go straight to those in need and not to warehouses of unscrupulous retailers.

Joseph dela Cruz, NFA regional director, told The STAR he has deployed 32 palengke watch teams all over Ilocos and the Cordillera regions to monitor unscrupulous traders who will take advantage of the rice distribution.

He said he also sought the assistance of police and local government units to help ensure that NFA rice, which is being sold in various NFA outlets, will not fall into the hands of hoarders and traders who will sell it at commercial prices.

He said his agency started distributing rice supply to various outlets in Ilocos and Cordillera regions on Tuesday but each consumer was allowed to buy two kilos only.

He also said some unscrupulous traders are allegedly selling NFA rice at P27.00, which they bought for only P18.00.

To curve this illegal practice and deter hoarding, the Department of Justice, on orders from Malacañang, yesterday created the Anti-Rice Hoarding Task Force (ARHTF).

Assisting the ARHTF in the crackdown of rice hoarders is the National Bureau of Investigation. The ARHTF is also empowered to tap the assistance of other law enforcement agencies in facilitating the investigation, resolution and prosecution of cases.

Some hitches

But not everything augurs well in the provinces.

In Malolos, erratic water supply and high cost of inputs have doomed farmers’ productivity, leading them to sell their land for conversion to other uses and contributing to the scarcity of rice supply.

Narding Paguio, former president of the Angat Maasim River Irrigation System (AMRIS) Confederation of Farmers’ Irrigators Association, told The STAR that the government must improve local irrigation systems and open new water sources to increase the country’s rice production.

Paguio said water is crucial in agricultural productivity in Bulacan, where at least 28,000 hectares of rice lands are dependent on Angat Dam, which also supplies 97 percent of Metro Manila’s potable water requirement.

He said farmers will not sell their farms to land developers if their land remained productive.

However, shortage in irrigation water supply induced by changing weather patterns like last year when the country suffered a prolong dry spell, left thousands of hectares of farmlands unproductive.

Land conversion had also been a perennial problem especially in the provinces.

Arturo Reyes, Bulacan provincial census supervisor, said census results showed that from 632,493 hectares of lands recorded in Central Luzon in 1991, a decrease of about 12.7 percent occurred, or a reduction of roughly 552,104 hectares in 2002.

Similarly, the number of farms in Central Luzon, which used to be known as the rice granary of the country, decreased by 2.7 percent from 350,785 hectares in 1991 to 341,466 in 2002.

Census analysts said the decrease of land area for agriculture in the region was due to rampant land conversion from agricultural to residential and commercial to cope with population growth, especially in highly urbanized areas like Angeles City and Olongapo City.

Records show that Aurora, a province on the eastern seaboard of Central Luzon, registered the highest increase in land area devoted to agriculture, while Nueva Ecija had the largest agriculture lands with 196,390 hectares.

Senate tells Palace to release funds

Meanwhile, Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. asked the government yesterday to release the P20-billion fund for agriculture and fisheries modernization that must be allotted for these two sectors annually under the law.

He said the additional funds would boost production in agriculture and fisheries and help ensure food security in the country.

Villar lamented that the focus on the agricultural needs of the country would only come during crises when this sector must be highly developed to reduce poverty, especially in the countryside.

The lack of development in agriculture, Villar said, was one of the reasons why the poor did not feel the 7.3 percent gross domestic product growth being trumpeted by the Arroyo government.

For instance, Villar said the government had not been complying with the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act mandating the release of P20 billion every year for programs to improve these areas.

“The P20 billion should be separate from the national budget. But the government interprets that these funds include (the allotment from the General Appropriations Act) and the credit extended by the Land Bank. The P20 billion must be separate or additional funds,” Villar said.

The Senate president said that if the funds were only being utilized properly, then the agriculture sector would not have stayed undeveloped to this day.

Unfortunately, he said there had been controversies in the disbursements of funds, such as the fertilizer fund scam involving President Arroyo and agriculture officials, particularly former undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante.

The fertilizer funds were supposedly diverted for the campaign of Mrs. Arroyo in 2004 and fertilizers unfit for lands and crops in the Philippines were overpriced so the lawmakers would earn kickbacks.

It’s all up to Yap

Meanwhile, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol criticized yesterday opposition lawmakers for pressing a congressional investigation into the critical rice situation in the country.

He said it would be up to Secretary Yap to decide whether to attend or not the legislative inquiries.

“At this point, the Senate should help in the rice problem. The guy (Yap) is doing well and they want to bother him in the middle of a rice problem,” Apostol said.

Yap told reporters there is no decision on how much rice would be imported from Thailand. He said the move is necessary even if the local harvest and imports from the United States and Vietnam are assured.

“As a function of good governance, the government – considering what the world is undergoing today in terms of climate change, continued increase in cost of production, increasing population growth, increasing demand from different parts of the world – it is incumbent on the government to think ahead and one of those strategies we are employing right now is continuous aggressive procurement and aggressive distribution by NFA even as our national harvest is increasing,” Yap said.

“We need to balance the harvest. We need to think of worst-case scenario so there should be continuous sourcing of rice for our country (so) at any point in time we will not face our countrymen and tell them we have no more rice supply,” he said.

He said the bulk of the P5 billion earlier reportedly ordered earmarked by Mrs. Arroyo for rice security would be spent on irrigation systems, particularly on repairs. He said the country has some 300,000 hectares of irrigated lands that need to be repaired.

The move, Yap said, would cost around P80,000 to P100,000 per hectare but it is cheaper than building a new irrigation system that would cost as much as half a million pesos per hectare.

The second most important component that the government is doing right now, he said, is a national seed support program “because if we have irrigation, if we don’t support our farmers to come up with the appropriate certified and hybrid seeds, we don’t have anything for planting,” he said.

He said the third major component of the government’s effort to sustain rice supply is the distribution of grain dryers.

Yap also gave assurances that the government is not importing genetically modified or GMO rice. – Charlie Lagasca, Jun Elias, Marianne Go, Charlie Lagasca, Non Alquitran, Delon Porcalla, Cesar Ramirez, Dino Balabo, Aurea Calica, Ric Sapnu, Paolo Romero

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