Land reform law celebrates 17th year

The Department of Land Reform (DLR) celebrates this week the 17th anniversary since signing the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) law during the Aquino administration. The law was meant to liberate the country’s vast agricultural wealth by returning to a majority of farmers their real and rightful lands.

Land Reform Secretary Rene Villa vowed yesterday to pursue agrarian reform programs even beyond 2008 — the end of the 20-year period for the CARP law’s activation since it was enacted on June 10, 1988.

"Agrarian Reform does not end in year 2008. It’s an ongoing concern as the department continues its advocacy for the improvement of the lives of the agrarian reform beneficiaries and for their economic advancement," Villa said.

He said land distribution might have its deadline, but the productivity aspect continues.

Villa said this year’s celebration of CARP, with the theme "Tuloy tuloy and Reform sa Lupa" (Land reform to go on), will highlight the DLR’s contributions to the government’s poverty alleviation program through continuous implementation of foreign-assisted and locally-funded projects for total rural development.

"All this program is part of the DLR contribution to President Arroyo’s 10-point program for her administration wherein she underscored her concern for agricultural productivity," he said.

Aside from land acquisition and distribution, the agency in coordination with various foreign funding institutions has implemented constructions of farm-to-market roads and bridges, water systems, harvest facilities, lighting systems and technical and financial assistance to agrarian reform beneficiaries.

To date, 15 foreign-assisted projects amounting to P27 million are transforming and modernizing some 896 agrarian reform communities out of the 1,697 set nationwide for the first quarter of the year, Villa said.

Villa said about 1,589,539 hectares of agricultural lands already distributed and acquired through CARP have been covered by the foreign assisted projects.

"A few years from now, these once sleepy towns and barangays will become vibrant and progressive as a result of these foreign-assisted projects," Villa said.