CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) blasted yesterday moves to internationalize instead of nationalizing agrarian provisions in the Constitution.
The KMP said the recommendation of Peter Wallace, an Australian national, to the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments, was “anti-land reform and anti-Filipino.” “Majority of the Filipino people are peasants who suffer from landlessness and desire genuine land reform,” said KMP Chair Rafael Mariano.
During the deliberations in Congress, Joint Resolution No. 1 seeking to lift protectionist economic provisions was tackled, including Wallace’s proposal to delete Article XII, Sec. 1 of the Charter pertaining to agricultural development and agrarian reform.
Mariano said that proposals to delete agrarian reform and allow the 100 percent foreign ownership of lands would lead to intensifi ed land-grabbing. “Obviously, these proposals are aimed to offer our farmlands at the altar of global land-grabbing and financialization of land. This shameless sell-out by Aquino and his political lieutenants in Congress will surely face intensifi ed agrarian unrest and peasant resistance in the countryside,” Mariano warned.
Instead, the KMP pushed for the enactment of House Bill 252 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) that seeks the nationalization of all agricultural lands and the subsequent free distribution of lands to the landless.
The House committee on agrarian reform also deliberated GARB yesterday at the Mitra Building of the Lower House. “It is the height of irony that while farmers are pushing for the GARB and the nationalization of lands, Aquino’s fellow landlords are in another room maneuvering for the global auction of our lands,” Mariano said.
The KMP said that “GARB and its provision on nationalization of agricultural lands will put an end to land monopoly.”
