GMA land conversion ban unconstitutional CREBA

MANILA, Philippines – Real estate developers yesterday blamed the “rice and food crisis” on the government for focusing on land redistribution and forgetting to provide support services and facilities for beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.

Reghis Romero II, Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (CREBA) president, also branded as “unconstitutional” President Arroyo’s order suspending land conversion.

“The land conversion ban is grossly unconstitutional and reeks of abuse of power and discretion since it violates the many provisions in the Constitution that guarantee equitable allocation of land resources for food, shelter, environment and other basic needs,” he said.

“CREBA is therefore compelled to look seriously at the prospect of filing a case against DAR.”

Speaking at a CREBA public forum in Makati, Romero said the country should not be experiencing “acute and chronic shortages of rice” had the Department of Agrarian Reform performed its job in accordance with the intent and spirit of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

“The DAR has concentrated mainly on land redistribution without considering viability and support services and facilities for CARP’s beneficiaries,” he said.

“The DAR admits that three million out of the four million beneficiaries did not receive any services, compelling them to resort to borrowing.”

DAR personnel also ate up to 60 percent of the agency’s budget, thus leaving only 40 percent for its operations, he added.

Romero said about 26 percent of CARP beneficiaries, on a national average, had sold their lands.

“And while farmlands have been chopped up into parcels too small to deliver economies of scale, DAR has not done anything substantial to assist the farmers in getting organized to enable them to acquire new technologies and modern equipment and facilities that will raise the volume and quality of their output, or the profitability of their enterprise so as to improve their quality of life,” he said.

Citing surveys by the Center for Peasant Education and Services, Romero said three out of five holders of Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) and emancipation patents (EPs) have sold their rights or mortgaged them and then abandoned their lands without paying.

“As it is now, many CARP beneficiaries continue to live in poverty,” he said.

Romero said government expenditures on agriculture consistently rose over the years, but has done little to increase rice yields substantially.

Quoting government records, Romero said the area devoted to rice production has been growing at a yearly average of 3.5 percent since the mid-1990s.

Farmers have shifted from other crops to rice, while idle lands have been placed under rice cultivation, he added.

Romero said agriculture’s share in the national economy has been declining since 1980, as farmlands are likewise contributing less and less to the country’s national food basket.

“Some rice lands yield only 2.5 tons per hectare, embarrassingly the lowest in Asia,” he said.

“On the whole, the Philippines’ average agricultural growth rate is two percent per year, which is one of the lowest in the ASEAN today.

“The problem, therefore, is not the hectarage planted to rice, but technology and appropriate resources to provide our farmers with economies of scale,” he said.

“But instead of directly addressing the problem, the DAR used the housing and construction industry as a scapegoat and smokescreen for its misdoings, and imposed instead a blanket ban on land conversion.”

Citing the government’s own estimate, Romero said the housing backlog is placed at 1.5 million units, plus a yearly increment of around 200,000 to 300,000.

The backlog in housing and infrastructure would imminently surge due to the land conversion ban, he added.

Farmers back ‘genuine agrarian reform’

Leaders of four of the biggest rural-based organizations asked other farmer groups supporting the five-year-old extension of  CARP to shift their support to the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) or House Bill 3059.

In a joint statement, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary-general Danilo Ramos, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) chair Fernando Hicap, Unyon ng Mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) chairperson Rene Galang and peasant women group Amihan-National Federation of Peasant Women chairwoman Carmen Buena said that HB 3059 is “a superior alternative” to merely extending CARP.

HB 3059 was principally authored by the late Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran.

“It is not the end of the road for landless peasants,” the farmer leaders said.

“There is life after CARP, a more meaningful and social justice driven purpose life after CARP. We still have GARB. Let us focus our political energy on HB 3059, which best articulates the struggling rural people’s search for social justice and emancipation from day-to-day injustice.”

The CARP is set to expire on June 10.