CARP extension elicits reaction; GARB no different

Farmers and peasant support groups from all over the country have different takes on the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) mandated by Republic Act No. 6657, the 20-year-old land reform law that intended to equitably distribute lands and vest land ownership to landless farmers.

 CARP expired on June 10, 2008, and the Arroyo government has yet to act on House Bill 4077 that will extend the law for another five years. Though the House of Representatives passed a joint resolution for the extension of the acquisition and distribution components of CARP until December 2008, there was no similar action from the Senate.

 With the tumultuous issue of agrarian reform, some believe CARP benefited and protected rich landowners and multi-national corporations who evaded land distribution through schemes such as reclassification, land use conversion, stock distribution options, leasehold arrangements, and joint ventures that still left farmers landless, and even indebted.  Extending the law will only allow the landowners to have consolidated control over their lands.

 Others say that CARP per se is not a failure, but that the implementation of the law has allowed loopholes. While CARP's implementation was able to cover more than 80% of its target, it was actually on public lands, and not the more crucial private lands.

 According to a Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and German Technical Assistance (GTZ) study on the performance of CARP, CARP has led to the re-distribution of 7 million hectares out of the total target of 8.2 million hectares.

 Of the 7 million has., 4 million were distributed by DAR, and 3 million by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). A total of 4.2 million farmers are considered beneficiaries of CARP.

 Some CARP beneficiaries have shown outstanding resilience, and were able to fend for themselves even without support services from the government. The Pecuaria Development Cooperative Inc. (PDCI) in Camarines Sur, for one, consists of 426 agrarian reform beneficiaries who were able to transform a 187-hectare hacienda into an organic red rice producing farm that boasts of nearly P8 million in sales of organic red rice as of June 2008.

 While those against CARP extension claim that House Bill No. 4077 will not address CARP's defects, they believe that the key to social justice is House Bill 3059 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB), which is pending in Congress. GARB aims to implement free distribution of lands to farmers, remove amortization rates burdening CARP beneficiaries, and promote cooperatives and other mutual-aid techniques.

 But not all are for GARB, since they also see it as "extremely radical" and "unconstitutional", with its confiscatory process of land acquisition for farmers. CARP extension with reforms is a more workable measure to improve the present situation.

 Farmers' access to and ownership of lands can lead to many opportunities, such as livelihood and welfare improvement.  As agrarian reform itself is considered a necessary component of agricultural and rural development, it is simply not enough to improve the living condition of farmers, much less alleviate the nation's poverty problem. Factors such as infrastructure development, provision of support services, and effective agricultural and rural development policies must work hand-in-hand with agrarian reform to bring about positive results.