CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The move to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by another two years would make the program as the world’s most expensive land reform.
Ironically, it would also be a “death warrant” to its supposed farmer- beneficiaries. This was how Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) reacted to reports that Pres. Aquino’s signing as urgent the proposal to extend CARP which is set to expire on June 30.
House Bill 4296 has been filed to extend the program by two more years. The CARP extension bill, the third extension of the program, will be funded by another P150 billion for two years, he noted This would bring to P341.6 billion the total cost of land reform since 1972.
“We do not see any pressing need to certify the CARP extension bill as urgent except as a big boost to landlords like
the Cojuangco-Aquino family which is attempting to perpetuate control over Hacienda Luisita amid their claim for a higher compensation,” said KMP chair Rafael Mariano.
He said the President’s family “has made use of the CARP enacted during the first Aquino administration to evade the distribution of Hacienda Luisita and turn the program into a source of bureaucratic corruption.” “Aquino’s certification of the CARP extension bill as urgent is a death warrant against Hacienda Luisita farmers and the Filipino peasantry.
The sham CARP is mainly designed to strengthen big landlords’ control over the land,” Mariano said. He also said that “Aquino’s political resurrection of the dead CARP also shows that the President’s family, despite continuing control over the lands and receiving P471.5 million in compensation, will continue to pursue its bid for a higher compensation over Luisita lands.”
Mariano said the 26 year-old CARP is the longest- running, most expensive, and bloodiest agrarian reform program.
“Not only is it the longest systematic deceit to the farmers, it also happens to be the most expensive land reform in the world,” Mariano said.
He cited records indicating that from 1972 or from the time Presidential Decree 27, former President Marcos’ land reform that is still in the CARP, until June 2005, total approved Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) compensation to 83,203 landowners for only 1.3 million hectares has already reached P41.6 billion ($783.2 million, based on an exchange rate of P53.115 per US dollar) in cash and bonds, or an average of P500,463 ($9422.25) per landlord.
The five-year extension of CARP or CARPER, (2009-2014) also has a P150-billion budgetary allocation.
