Activists gear up for street protests as CARPer’s term ends June 30

AS the expiration of the law extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) draws near, farmers are gearing up for simultaneous protest actions to express their sentiment over the issue of agrarian reform.

One group of farmers is calling for the junking of the law that gave birth to CARP while another group is calling for another extension to complete the land distribution promised under Republic Act (RA) 9700 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program-Extension with Reform (CARPer).

CARPer’s land distribution component is set to expire on June 30.

Agrarian reform advocates belonging to Task Force Mapalad (TFM) said around 400,000 hectares that are supposed to be covered by CARPer have not been issued notice of coverage by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).

The DAR’s official figures, however, put the targeted lands that have yet to be issued notice of coverages as of February 2014 is estimated at 206,000 hectares only.

Nevertheless, leaders of various groups and agrarian reform stakeholders said with only 28 days before DAR’s window for issuing the notice of coverage, there are signs that suggest the DAR will miss the deadline by a great margin anew.

The program which was first implemented in 1988 during the presidency of Cory Aquino was extended in 1998 for another 10 years and again 2009 for another five years through RA 9700 or CARPer.

House Bill 4296, or the bill granting another two-year extension of the program, was passed by the committee on agrarian reform on May 14. The committee report was subsequently approved on May 28.

According to Rafael Mariano, chairman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), extending CARP anew will only pave way for “more lies, deception and violence” which characterized the program’s more than 26 years of implementation.

“The program is bogus. It is a sham. No matter how many times the farmers are issued land titles, all these will eventually be forfeited by the government,” he said, citing the case of farmers in Hacienda Looc in Nasugbu, Batangas, the more than 2,000-hectare Hacienda Dolores in Porac, Pampanga; and the more than 3,500-hectare Araneta Estate in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.

New law

“WHAT we need is a new law that will end this lies and false hope offered by CARP,” he said.

He said that CARP and CARPer led to more violence against farmers who end up being evicted by landlords, citing what happened in the 358-hectares land owned by the Tarlac Development Corp. (Tadeco), that is in turn owned by President Aquino’s family.

“The DAR issued notice of coverage to that land but what the landlords did was they put fences after evicting the farmers,” he said.

The DAR, the lead implementing agency of CARP, was unable to stop Tadeco from fencing the contested land, he said.

“Ever since, KMP is opposed to CARP. The program was designed to preserve status quo and not to distribute land to the landless farmers. This is not a social justice program,” he said.

Together with farmer-leaders allied with KMP, he called to oust Mr. Aquino, who he described “as the chief political representative of big landlords.”

KMP will spearhead a series of protest actions called “Lakbayan ng mga Biktima ng CARP para sa Tunay na Reporma sa Lupa” that will highlight their call for the free distribution of land to the landless farmers starting on June 22. The protest action will culminate on June 30 which marks the date that CARPer ends.

Meanwhile another group of farmers are calling for another extension of the program.

Jaime Tadeo of the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (Sara) expressed his support to extending CARP anew. He said many Filipino farmers remain landless and the only way for them to own a land and become productive is through agrarian reform.

Tadeo said the confiscatory nature of GARB being pushed by KMP will not materialize under the present democratic setup.

‘Landless peasants can’t wait any longer

ARCHBISHOP Antonio Ledesma of Cagayan de Oro has urged President Aquino to meet with marching landless peasants from Mindanao and Negros who have sailed to Batangas and Manila to press their demand for the completion of agrarian reform.

In his June 2, appeal to the President, Ledesma said his call finds inspiration from the papal encyclical “Materet Magistra,” and argued “that the tillers of the soil who are in poverty deserve more.” He asked the President to meet with the farmers and engage them in a heart-to-heart talk to make the final push for the implementation of agrarian reform.

Apart from himself, Ledesma listed 22 other farmers’ representatives belonging to TFM and other groups, church leaders and CARP advocates who would attend the meeting to discuss the measures needed to speed up the implementation of agrarian reform, less than four weeks before its statutory demise.

“The landless farmers are terribly distraught that they are again trekking to Manila, calling for the completion of the CARP implementation. This time, they are also calling for the realization of the goal of CARP in moving the nation toward sound rural development and industrialization, and establishing small owner-cultivatorship of economic-sized farms as the basis of Philippines agriculture,” the archbishop declared.

Ledesma argued that the same farmers who marched from Negros and Mindanao are back on the highways of Luzon to demonstrate their unstinting demand for land, which the President said they would get in June 2012.

“The best that the farmers can do right now is to seek and hope to extricate themselves from misery through simultaneous marches from their farms in Mindanao and Visayas toward Malacañang in order that their cries and pleas would be heard,” Ledesma told Mr. Aquino.

In pleading on behalf of the farmers, the prelate said there is still material time for Aquino to show that he means business in promising to complete agrarian reform within his term.

“The Land Acquisition and Distribution [LAD] phase of the CARP-1998 and the CARP Extension with Reforms [CARPer-2009] expires on June 30, 2014, except for lands that have pending cases and those lands that have been issued with Notices of Coverage as of that date will continue to be processed until distributed [Section 30, Republic Act 9700],” Ledesma argued. –Jonathan L. Mayuga, Businessmirror