[ Manila Bulletin Online ] May 5, 2008
By FREDDIE LAZARO
DAR head cites need to extend CARP for 5 years
NARVACAN, Ilocos Sur — Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser C. Pangandaman said he is optimistic that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) will be extended for five years.
Pangandaman made this comment during his short visit here last week.
CARP, which was launched during martial-law era, will expire on June 30, this year.
Earlier, it was reported that the House committee on agrarian reform had endorsed a bill extending the implementation of CARP for five years.
Secretary Pangandaman said there’s a need for the extension of CARP to enable the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), to hit its target of 5.3 million hectares for land acquisition and land distribution.
"Talagang kailangan pa ang CARP because we are looking at more or less 1.3 million hectares to be acquired and distributed to the landless. Ito’y balanse naming sa 5.3 million hectares because we had already distributed some four million hectares," Pangandaman said.
"So, we need another five years or 10 years for the extension of CARP to accomplish our balance and one thing more, we need to render more support services to individual farmers in order for them to sustain the productivity of the land that we had distributed," he said.
The support-services program for the agrarian reform beneficiaries include construction of irrigation facilities, and farm-to-market roads.
Secretary Pangandaman said that the extension of CARP is one of the priority bills that congressmen and President Arroyo had approved during the recent meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council in Malacañang.
It was recalled that then President Ferdinand Marcos launched the agrarian reform program when he issued by Presidential Decree No. 27 which ordered the distribution of rice and corn lands to landless farmers. The law was later amended to include sugar land.
In 1988, Republic Act No. 6675, otherwise known as CARP Law, was enacted, mandating the implementation of the agrarian reform program for 10 years.
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