Vol. XXI, No. 219 [ Business World Online ]
Monday, June 9, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
IT’S A cliff-hanger decision on whether or not to extend the 20-year-old land reform law which expires tomorrow, with Congress set to adjourn on Wednesday.
A staff from Senate agrarian reform committee chaired by Gregorio B. Honasan II yesterday confirmed that senators have received documents required of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to help them decide on the extension, including inventory of lands, intended beneficiaries and impact assessment of an extension Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
"The best effort of the committee is to have [the bill] sponsored [in plenary] before session adjourns," the staff, who refused to be identified, told BusinessWorld in a telephone interview.
The staff said they are consolidating several measures to "expedite" committee approval, including adopting the five-year extension in House Bill (HB) No. 4077, and an additional P47 billion to the House’s P100-billion extended program budget.
Mr. Honasan said last week that although the measure is an "urgent matter, we will not sacrifice the quality of our work for expediency."
Speaker Prospero C. Nograles and House Majority Leader Arthur D. Defensor, Sr. said CARP’s extension is on top of their agenda. The bill was certified as urgent by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on June 3.
With reservations
Administration ally Senator Joker P. Arroyo said he favors the extension but with reservations. Mr. Arroyo as executive secretary of the Aquino administration, signed the proclamation announcing the launch of the Agrarian Reform Law in 1987.
"The idea of CARP is for tenants who are tilling the soil. If you’re not a farmer, you’re not entitled to a land reform. What DAR has been doing is give lands to non-farmer beneficiaries," he told BusinessWorld in a telephone interview.
"All of the senators are for extension of CARP. The problem started when DAR could not give the documents needed. They could not support their assertions," he added.
Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser C. Pangandaman said in a telephone interview they have forwarded to the Senate the inventory of lands and beneficiaries and impact assessment a few weeks after the chamber’s hearing on the proposal on May 21.
But Mr. Arroyo claimed DAR only submitted the documents on Saturday and they were "not itemized" as required. "It was done in bad faith. We required that [submissions] since the start of the Senate hearings in January." — Jhoanna Frances S. Valdez and Bernard U. Allauigan
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