Bicam allots P150B for 5-year CARP

The bicameral conference committee in a marathon meeting late Tuesday evening approved a joint resolution seeking a five-year extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), increased its fund allocation to P150 billion, and restored its compulsory land acquisition and distribution schemes covering all agricultural lands.

Under the consolidated version of the CARP bill, land acquisition and distribution shall be completed by June 30, 2014 on a province-by-province basis.

The bicameral conference committee, co-chaired by Sen. Gregorio Honasan and Apayao Rep. Elias Bulut Jr., also agreed to ban the conversion of all irrigated and irrigable lands into other uses to protect and prevent depletion of agricultural lands.

The marathon session almost reached an impasse after the Senate and House contingents disagreed on who should be considered as the program’s qualified beneficiaries. The House version insists on having as beneficiaries those “regular” farmers and farmworkers who are actually tilling the lands. The Senate version, on the other hand, seeks to include “seasonal farmers” who also till the land during and harvest seasons.

House Deputy Speaker and Cebu Rep. Pablo Garcia strongly opposed the inclusion of seasonal farmers – e.g., sacadas or farmhands in sugarlands — as beneficiaries to CARP, stressing that seasonal farmers “do not till the lands” and that Congress should “only give lands to the actual tillers. This is non-negotiable.”

But Garcia’s argument failed to convince the rest of the bicameral conference committee even as Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. stood firm on his earlier version that seasonal farmers should be included as agrarian reform beneficiaries as they too till the land during planting and harvest season.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, principal author of the House version of the CARP bill, told Garcia that he gave his word to incorporate his (Garcia) amendment, but stressed he is also willing to accept “reasonable” modification with the Senate on the measure. “The bicameral conference is being held precisely to reconcile the two versions of the CARP bill,” said Lagman.

In the end, the bicameral panel was able to convince Garcia to allow seasonal farmers as agrarian reform beneficiaries but as last priority and/or provided the farmer beneficiary “waived” his/her right to own land. This was after Pimentel noted that there are also instances that after the farmers and farmworkers were already given lands, there are still excess lands that remained to be distributed.

The bicameral committee also approved the inclusion of women workers who till the land in Carp coverage.

They also agreed to make the proposed five-year extension of the CARP law, which expires on June 30, retroactive July 1, 2009.

The said legislation, certified urgent by Malacanang, will cover some 1.3 million hectares of agricultural lands that has to be distributed to an estimated million of beneficiaries.

Since the current CARP has a lifetime of six months to expire June 30, the plan is to make the effectivity of the new law retroactive to July 1, Pimentel said.

The consolidated bill will be submitted to the Senate and House of Representatives for ratification up the opening of the regular session of Congress on July 27.

The bill also mandates the creation of women’s desk in all agrarian reform communities where rural women can access to air their grievances against sex discrimination and also ensure that women’s right to own property and to work even apart from their husbands but in accordance with existing laws will be respected.

The bill also prioritizes the right to own “CARPed lands” starting from actual farm workers, then to seasonal workers if there is extra land for distribution.

The marathon meeting was also attended by Senators Pia Cayetano and Richard Gordon and Speaker Prospero Nograles and Representatives Salvador Escudero III, Rodolfo Antonino, Michael John Duavit, and party-list Ana Hontiveros. –With reports from Angie Rosales and PNA