‘Agrarian emancipation to be hallmark of Marcos’ first year’

MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Joey Salceda described President Marcos’ expected signing tomorrow of the Agrarian Emancipation Act, which will free farmers from debt, as the “hallmark” of his first year in office.

It’s historic in scale, in worldview and in what it will bring to the people,” the chairman of the ways and means committee of the House of Representatives told the Kapihan sa Manila Bay yesterday.

As per his projections, the New Agrarian Emancipation Act will condone P58.125 billion in agrarian arrears, benefiting 654,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries involving a total of 1.18 million hectares of awarded lands.

“This law, in every sense of the word, is emancipation – emancipation of farmers from debt, emancipation of rural areas from a destiny of poverty, emancipation of land from perpetual idleness,” Salceda said.

“More than 69 percent of poverty in this country is rural. The DAR’s purpose was to accelerate rural development. But because agrarian lands were tied down in liens and due to the non-transferability restriction, they could not maximize output,” he said, referring to the Department of Agrarian Reform.

Salceda at the same time expressed bewilderment that while the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) Law had noble intentions, there was practically nothing that the farmers could do to their land, on the basis that they didn’t have the capital, among many others that were necessary.

As far as he is concerned, the old CARP Law “consigned rural areas to low economic activity.”