Friday, May 16, 2008 [ philstar.com ]
The House of Representatives will approve in the next two weeks the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by five more years, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said yesterday.
“We can start plenary debates on the measure next week and should be able to approve it week after next,” he said.
Lagman is a principal author of the CARP extension bill. He and other authors, including Rep. Edno Joson of Nueva Ecija, delivered their sponsorship speeches last Wednesday night.
The Albay congressman said what is expiring on June 30 this year is the land acquisition and distribution component of CARP.
“That is what we are proposing to extend for an additional five years, or until 2013. The other components, like support services to beneficiaries, continue to be implemented,” he said.
He said their bill is a “simple CARP extension measure, plus funding of P100 billion.”
“The other reforms proposed by my colleagues, including the suggestion to reform the implementing agency, would be tackled in another bill that would amend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law,” he added.
There have been proposals to “reform” the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) after government auditors discovered that it paid more than P1 billion to consultants.
Critics said the amount could have been better used to benefit millions of farmer-beneficiaries, instead of a few consultants.
Lagman said 40 percent or P40 billion of the proposed P100-billion funding would be set aside for support services.
“Out of that P40 billion, 30 percent or P12 billion would be used as credit for beneficiaries who need not mortgage their titles to obtain production loans. It is the duty of the government to extend credit to farmer-beneficiaries,” he said.
He also said he would look into the proposal to allow the conversion of emancipation patents (EPs) and certificates of land ownership awards (CLOAs) into regular transfer certificates of title or TCTs.
“EPs and CLOAs are actually legal titles of farmers to the land distributed to them, but I can understand that banks do not accept these as TCTs and as loan collateral,” he said.
He pointed out that under the law, beneficiaries are allowed to mortgage their titles 10 years after their issuance.
“We should have a simple process of converting EPs and CLOAs into TCTs,” he stressed.
At present, officials of the DAR and Land Registration Authority (LRA) allow the conversion of these CARP documents into regular TCTs, but at a huge cost to beneficiaries.
In Central Luzon, the going rate is P100,000 per hectare, with the bulk of the amount reportedly going to fixers and DAR and LRA insiders.
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