CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Marking yesterday (June 10) the 25th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program(CARP), the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) assailed Pres.Aquino and his most trusted allies in the Liberal Party as being “anti-land reform” and accused them of “agrarian crimes.”
KMP secretary general Antonio Flores said in a statement that “looking back at the bogus CARP’s timeline, the Liberal Party bosses have their own ‘agrarian crimes’ that contributed to the further worsening of the sham CARP.”
KMP named the other LP officials as Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas, and Sen. Franklin Drilon.
”In 1989, Abad was the Cojuangco-Aquino’s hatchet man of the stock distribution option scheme in Hacienda Luisita,” said Flores recalling that “then Agrarian Reform Secretary Miriam Defensor resigned due to her opposition to the stock distribution option.”
“But immediately after the appointment of Abad as agrarian reform secretary, he carried out the ruthless task of deceiving and prolonging the Cojuangcos’ feudal exploitation of Hacienda Luisita farm workers,” Flores said.
The KMP statement recalled that “in 1990, then Justice Secretary Drilon issued DOJ Opinion No. 44 stating that lands already reclassified into residential, industrial or commercial use or purpose prior to June 15, 1988 are not covered by CARP.”
“The DOJ Opinion 44 was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Natalia Realty case. Drilon’s anti-peasant opinion paved the way for the rampant, massive, and indiscriminate conversion of agricultural lands,” Flores noted.
He said Roxas’ family used Section 10 of the sham CARP providing that lands with 18 percent slope are exempted from CARP “to evade distribution of the 311-hectare Araneta lands in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan.”
Former Agrarian Reform Secretaries Ernesto Garilao and Horacio Morales, in 1995 and 1998, decided to place Hacienda Araneta under CARP coverage.
”Like the Cojuangco-Aquinos, the Araneta-Roxas clan in 2003 overturned the DAR’s decision covering the more than 311-hectare Hacienda Araneta in Bulacan using the provisions of the sham CARP itself,” said Flores.
He noted that “today, more than 1,000 peasant families are on the brink of displacement due to the Aquino government’s plan to build the Metro Rail Transit 7’s intermodal depot and residential-commercial components over the 311-hectare Hacienda Araneta in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan.”
The KMP said that non-land transfer schemes like the SDO, together with DOJ Opinion 44 and the exemptions provided by CARP resulted to the outright denial of the rights of farmers to own the lands.
”Drilon’s DOJ Opinion 44 alone excluded millions of hectares of lands from distribution and resulted to the sham CARP, in 1995, to lower its target from 10.3 million hectares to 7.8 million hectares,” Flores said.
”The Filipino peasantry cannot expect the Liberal Party-led Aquino administration to implement genuine land reform and the free distribution of lands. The LP is nothing but a ‘Landlord Party’ with inherent class hatred to the peasantry,” the KMP leader said.
