ANGELES CITY – A militant party list group and a fishers’ federation urged yesterday the Aquino government admit the failure of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPer), as they reported a total backlog of 1,093,000 hectares still up for distribution to farmers.
“So far, CARPer has accomplished only 54.6 percent of its national land acquisition and distribution target,” said a joint statement issued by Anakpawis partylist and the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya).
Anakpawis party list vice chairperson Fernando Hicap and Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France said “Agrarian Reform Sec. Virgilio de los Reyes and other land reform officials should not accept the reality that CARPer has fatal loopholes and major legal defects that evade distribution of vast hectares of private lands to landless farmers and tillers.”
They instead batted for the passage of House Bill 374 authored by the late Anakpawis party list Rep. Crispin Beltran and his colleague incumbent Rep. Rafael Mariano.
The proposal calls for a comprehensive coverage of lands to be distributed under the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) where millions of hectares would be distributed for free to landless, but qualified farmers.
The statement noted that so far, the Department of Agrarian Reform has “a total backlog of 1,093,000 hectares of agricultural lands, accomplishing only 54.6 percent of its national land acquisition and distribution target.
Anakpawis and Pamalakaya noted that “at the rate DAR is doing its work, the agency has to work at 20 times its current pace to meet its targets.”
“The CARPer law by orientation and by design is only meant to engage in token distribution of land and not a thoroughgoing land reform program,” Hicap and France noted.
The CARPer law, or Republic Act 9700 introduced by former Rep. Riza Hontiveros in 2007, amended provisions of the original Comprehensive Agragrial Reform Law (CARL) of 1988. CARPer extended the land distribution program of CARP by five years.
It has been criticized by two provisions, including one that requires the sworn testimony of the landlord stating that the farmer-beneficiary actually worked the concerned piece of land before any titles can be handed over and another provision concerning compensation for affected landowners.
It also provides that the third phase of land reform would not be started unless 90 percent of the coverage of the old CARL should have been distributed.
“The one million hectare land which DAR has failed to distribute under the CARPer law is an understatement.
The figure does not include private lands currently locked in legal disputes all over the country and those lands acquired by big landlords through land-grabbing and other forms of coercive and violent means,” said the statement of Anakpawis and Pamalakaya.
They noted that the one million hectares exclude other vast areas such as 12,000 hectare agricultural and forest lands in Casiguran, Quezon which has been put within the scope of the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Free Port Project.
The statement also cited other “glaring failures” of CARPer also cover the failure to distribute 8,650 hectares of Hacienda Looc in Nasugbu, Batangas, the 7,100 hectare prime land in Hacienda Yulo in Canlubang, Laguna and the 30,000 hectare haciendas in Negros Island belonging to business tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr.
Anakpawis and Pamalakaya advised church groups and other farmers’ organizations to “quit entertaining false hopes from CARPer and to go beyond the bogus land reform program and pursue a social justice driven land reform.”
