DAR spent P1 B on consultants in 2005, 2006

MANILA, Philippines – Government auditors are questioning almost P1 billion spent by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) on consultants in 2005 and 2006, Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra revealed yesterday.

Because of this finding, Mitra, House agriculture committee chairman and one of the authors of the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), said the proposed law “must be accompanied by measures that will reform the agency that will implement it.”

“DAR should explain its huge expense for consultancy services for two years. I am withholding judgment if that money was spent rightly or not. If the consultants were worth every cent of what we paid them, if for example one of them developed a miracle rice, then we should be thankful for them,” he said.

He said although consultants are needed, hiring people with specialized training “must be done in moderation.”   

“In the case of agrarian reform, operating overhead of DAR must be kept to a minimum so that the bulk of agency funds will go directly to beneficiaries,” he stressed.

Quoting Commission on Audit reports submitted to the House, Mitra said DAR spent P633 million for “consultancy services” in 2006.

This was double the P322.3 million spent for the same purpose in 2005, bringing DAR’s two-year consultancy tab to P985 million.

Mitra said the almost P1 billion DAR paid its consultants could have been better used to support farmer-beneficiaries’ requirements to increase productivity.

He said this should be the thrust of DAR if CARP is extended, especially now that the nation is grappling with a food crisis.

Last week, the House agrarian reform committee endorsed a bill extending CARP by five more years. The program is set to expire on June 30 this year.      

The CARP extension was one of the priority bills that members of Congress and President Arroyo agreed upon during the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council meeting in Malacañang on April 22.

Catholic bishops had earlier called on lawmakers to give the program a few more years so that sugar lands could be distributed among farmer-tillers.

Rep. Risa Hontiveros of the party-list group Akbayan, one of the proponents of the CARP extension, said there are at least 1.2 million hectares of private agricultural lands that are still undistributed.

“Allowing CARP to die without fulfilling its promises of social justice and emancipation would be the height of injustice,” she said.

Hontiveros said among private landholdings that are covered by CARP and which have not been distributed to their tenants are six haciendas owned by the family of President Arroyo’s husband, lawyer Jose Miguel Arroyo, in Negros Occidental.

“Eight years ago, the President promised to put these haciendas under CARP. Three of these have avoided CARP through land conversion and other means,” she added.

She pointed out that Hacienda Bacan has been converted into agro-industrial use for the production of ethanol, while Hacienda Grande has been subdivided and titled to several corporations, individuals and foundations.

“The last of the three plantations, Hacienda Paraiso, was subdivided into parcels of five hectares, a sly if not silly attempt to evade the law,” Hontiveros said.

She stressed that the planned law extending CARP should prohibit such maneuvers.

The late President Marcos started the agrarian reform program by mandating the distribution of rice lands under Presidential Decree 27. The law was later amended to include sugar lands.

Aside from extending CARP, lawmakers are considering a measure that would require banks to accept titles issued to agrarian reform beneficiaries as loan collateral.

At present, such titles are considered worthless scraps of paper by banks.