Negros farm workers rally vs DAR

BACOLOD CITY — Sugar farm workers affiliated with the Movement for the Preservation of Employee-Employer Relations (MPEER) in Negros Occidental trooped to the provincial office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) here yesterday to express disappointment over the government’s alleged failure to provide support services to agrarian reform beneficiaries.

MPEER, which joined forces with the militant Kilusang Mangagawa at Obrero, is also opposing moves to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) beyond 2008 when its implementation expires.

"We believe that CARP has defeated the very purpose of emancipating sugar workers from the bondage of poverty," MPEER spokesperson Arnel Ambid said.

The program, he said, has even further aggravated the situation of the sugar workers, who continue to wallow in poverty after they became CARP beneficiaries because of lack of government support services.

In southern Negros Occidental, Ambid claimed that at least 90 percent of the landholdings distributed under CARP are no longer in the possession of the beneficiaries but have been leased back or "pawned" to other planters.