CARP bill divides militant lawmakers

The House of Representatives extending for five years the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) on Wednesday seemed to have divided militant lawmakers who had all been behind it.

The House approved House Bill 4077 on third and final reading, with 211 votes in favor and 13 against. The measure also gave the new agrarian reform program at least P100-billion funding.

Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel of Akbayan party-list and a primary sponsor of the bill declared the approval of the measure as a “victory for Filipino farmers.”

The critics of House Bill 4077 who mainly include other members of the militant bloc in Congress voted against the measure, saying that the bill did not plug “loopholes” of the old CARP.

Explaining his negative vote, Rep. Teodoro Casiño of another militant party-list group, Bayan Muna, for instance, assailed the passage of what he claimed to be a “defective and anti-farmer agrarian reform law.”

He explained that House Bill 4077 did not cure the issue of landlessness of farmers since it retained “congenital defects” of the old CARP.

Among the loopholes he cited were the exclusion of vast tracts of land that had been “technical classified,” the provisions for alternative modes of compliance—which deny farmer- beneficiaries full ownership and control of the land—and a payment scheme that keeps farmers in a continued life of debt and servitude to the landlord or the Land Bank.

Push for GARP

The rest of the militant bloc also on Thursday said that they would continue pushing for House Bill 3059, supposedly the Genuine Agrarian Reform Program, or GARP. Authored by the late Rep. Crispin Beltran with Casino and Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna and Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan of Gabriela, the bill seeks to plug the “loopholes” of the old agrarian reform program.

Under the bill, the definition of agricultural lands would be expanded to broaden the scope of CARP. The bill calls for the expropriation of all private lands exceeding five hectares and for the distribution of lands to be completed within five years.

GARP also seeks the allocation of a Land Reform Support Services Fund amounting P50 billion to be released in tranches within five years for the implementation of the support services component.

The Senate passed on Monday its own version of the bill. The final version of the consolidated bill would be enacted when Congress resumes session next month.

House Bill 4077, known as the CARP Extension with Reforms, or Carper, effectively also extended the period given to acquisition and distribution of all agricultural lands mandated under Republic Act 6657, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (Carl) for five years from 2008 to 2013.

Critics wrong

House Speaker Prospero Nograles said, “Once again, the House of the People proved [that] our critics they were dead wrong in claiming that we were not serious in our commitment to pass the CARP Law.”

Nograles noted that the series of sneak demonstrations by supposedly unwieldy members of various farmers’ organizations that were lobbying for the passage of the agrarian-reform law nearly turned off many congressmen who eventually still voted in favor of the measure’s approval.

“I even have to beg them [lawmakers] not to change their minds because I know fully well that we cannot compromise CARP just because of our personal pride,” he said.

The protesters have apologized to Nograles through Hontiveros for damaging a portion of the gate of the Batasang Pambansa, the official home of the lawmakers. Those arrested by crowd-control units have already been released.

Those among them from Task Force Mapalad thanked Nograles “for leading the majority party in supporting the Carp measure and keeping his commitment to the farmers,” said the group’s spokesman, Edna Sobrecaray.

Sobrecaray also thanked Hontiveros, Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay who “defended” the measure, agrarian reform committee chairman Elias Bulu and all the lawmakers who voted for the bill.

More work ahead

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman said his department still has about 1.3 million hectares to cover under CARP that would benefit around 700,000 farmers nationwide.

Pangandaman added that as of June 3, the Department of Agrarian Reform had acquired and distributed around 7.2 million hectares of private and public agricultural lands

Among the reforms introduced by proponents of House Bill 4407 to the old agrarian-reform program were compulsory land acquisition and distribution of agricultural lands, collateral-free credit and increased support services to farmer-beneficiaries, indispensability of Emancipation Patents and Certificate of Land Ownership Awards and recognition of women as program beneficiaries.

The P100-billion funding in part would go to land acquisition and distribution.

The authority to acquire and distribute agricultural lands granted by the old agrarian reform program expired in December last year, or 10 years after CARL was enacted in 1998.

House Bill 4077 also mandated the creation of a joint congressional oversight committee, protection of farmers from harassment, prohibition on conversion of agricultural lands and increased penalties for obstruction of Carp implementation.

Malacañang welcomed the passage of the bill extending CARP, saying that it would greatly benefit the agricultural sector.

“The farmers will finally get justice,” Deputy Spokesman Anthony Golez Jr. said during a radio interview. — Frank Lloyd Tiongson, Reporter with Angelo S. Samonte And Ira Karen Apanay, Manila Times