CBCP official wants gov't to hasten implementation of CARPER

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration should hasten the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reform (CARPER) before it expires at the end of the year, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said yesterday.

“In two years of the Benigno C. Aquino III presidency, it has only reach 41 percent of its goal in acquiring and distributing all public and private lands to poor farmers, as provided by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988,” Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the CBCP’s National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace, said.

“But 50 years have passed, and yet, the farm workers remain landless,” he said.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said close to 26,000 hectares of farmlands are set for distribution before the end of March, 28,857 hectares in June, and over 31,640 hectares in the last semester of this year.

“It seems the Cojuangco family is not letting go of its hold on the disputed hacienda, despite the fact that they had acquired the 6,000-hectare land via a loan from the Government Service Insurance System and a dollar loan from a private entity in New York in 1958, on the condition that it would be redistributed to the tenants after 10 years,” Pabillo noted.

Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed on July 27, 2009 Republic Act 9700 or “An Act Strengthening the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), extending the acquisition and distribution of all agricultural lands, instituting necessary reforms.”

It amended certain provisions of RA 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988.

Pabillo also expressed disappointment over what he considers Aquino’s silence on the land reform issue.

“We must remind them (the Cojuangco clan) of what they should do. Remember what the Holy Scriptures said: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul,” Pabillo stressed.

He also asked the faithful to support the cause of the Hacienda Luisita farmers as well as their call for the full implementation of CARP.

“For the issue of the farmers is also the issue of the people. For the peasants are the ones who produce food on everybody’s table,” he said.

Still with SC

Meanwhile, Malacañang reiterated yesterday that the case of Hacienda Luisita is still pending with the Supreme Court (SC) and this should be explained to the farmer beneficiaries.

“The government supported land distribution. That is very clear. But the final ruling is with the Supreme Court, not the executive,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said over radio dzRB.

Valte added that DAR is ready to distribute the land and has started conducting information campaign for the purpose.

Farmer-leaders of Hacienda Luisita urged the Aquino family to heed the call of Catholic Church authorities for the immediate distribution of lands to farmers. – With Aurea Calica