5-year extension of CARP sought

MANILA, Philippines – Two Mindanao lawmakers have filed a bill seeking to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by five years.

Land acquisition and distribution as provided under Republic Act 6657 will expire on June 30 this year.

Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and his brother Maximo, who represents the party-list group Abante Mindanao, filed the CARP extension bill.

They said the program aims to give land to landless farmers and farm workers, promote social justice and move the nation toward a sound rural development and industrialization with due regard to the rights of the landowners to just compensation.

“However, 25 years after the enactment of the law, there are still numerous landless farmers all over the country and the goals for which the law was passed have yet to be met. For instance, for 2012, the target of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) was to process 180,000 hectares of land, but they were only able to process 32,403.90 hectares,” the Rodriguezes said.

“DAR also targeted to have 17,254 hectares of land placed under leasehold agreements in 2012, but they were only able to have 7,724 hectares. Also, there are 20,144 pending cases in DAR, and as of June 2012, only 7,903 were resolved. When it comes to Agrarian Legal Assistance cases, the target was to have the 1,390 cases submitted for resolution but only 268 were submitted,” they said.

The lawmakers pointed out these figures show DAR has still much work to do, which makes it necessary to extend the life of the CARP law.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Gil delos Reyes told the House committee on agrarian reform last week that there is a balance of 790,000 hectares of agricultural land to be distributed.

Delos Reyes said 26,000 landowners are affected and they would soon be issued notices of coverage. He said the owners have the option to retain up to seven hectares of their land.

He said one problem they are facing is the loss of some land titles and the difficulty of reconstructing them.

One large landholding that is now being distributed is the Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, formerly owned by the Cojuangcos, who are relatives of President Aquino.

The Luisita case had reached the Supreme Court, which had ordered that it be farmed out among tenant farmers at 1989 land values.

A party-list congressman has claimed the Cojuangcos have been overpaid by P167 million, on top of the P304-million value of their property. –Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star)