By Charlie V. Manalo
01/04/2009 [ tribune.net.ph ]
President Arroyo has extinguished the peasants’ remaining flicker of hope for the continued land acquisition and distribution (LAD) in the next six months as she failed to insist on its continuation during the brief extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) as prescribed under the House-Senate joint resolution.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the progressive-minded lawmakers who fought but failed to craft a pro-farmer CARL, said the “appropriate step now” is to revive land acquisition and distribution in a new legislative measure following the constitutional mandate for “just distribution of all agricultural lands” to landless farmers.
Lagman had expressed dismay that Mrs. Arroyo let House-Senate Joint Resolution 19 “lapse into law,” thereby paving the way for the exclusion of compulsory acquisition of private agricultural lands from the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Lagman admitted that he had lobbied on behalf of landless farmers and asked President Arroyo to exercise her veto power on the joint resolution.
“I have earlier urged the President to veto the joint resolution for limiting the Land Acquisition and Distribution (aspect of CARP) to lands covered by voluntary-offer-to-sell and voluntary-land-transfer schemes, which makes the agrarian reform coverage at the sole option of landowners,” Lagman said.
He described the joint resolution disallowing LAD as “unconstitutional.”
Lagman, who had batted for the extension of the entire CARP law without any change in its original provisions, said the Land Acquisition and Distribution aspect of CARP could still be in effect had the President vetoed the provision in the Joint Resolution seeking to disallow its implementation during the period of extension.
“The LAD expired after midnight of Dec. 31, 2008 (when the original CARL expired) without President Macapagal-Arroyo reasonably approving the joint resolution. Even if the President allows the joint resolution to ‘lapse into law’ by Jan. 22, 2009 or 30 days after the enrolled copy of the joint resolution was officially received by the Office of the President on December 23, 2008, there is no more LAD to extend because it has already earlier expired,” Lagman explained.
According to Lagman, once the deadline sought to be extended has expired, no belated extension could be effected.
The Albay solon stressed that the joint resolution could only be allowed to “lapse into law” without the President’s explicit approval if there is sufficient intervening time before the expiration of the deadline and the lapsing into effectivity of the joint resolution.
“The requisite intervening period is absent because the LAD expired immediately after December 31, 2008 and the anticipated lapsing into law of the joint resolution will still occur on January 22, 2009 or twenty two days after the actual expiration of the LAD,” he pointed out.
“The joint resolution now belongs to the archives of failed measures and the legislative process is ripe for the enactment of House Bill No. 4077, my original extension bill, which should now be converted into a LAD revival measure including compulsory acquisition, Lagman added.
The lawmaker said that with expiration of the LAD, the appropriate step now was to revive it, which should be done faithfully according to the dictates of the constitutional mandate for the “just distribution of all agricultural lands.”
There are still 1.3 million hectares of land subject to CARP coverage.