Elusive dream

The clock is ticking on the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), whose five-year extension by law (Carper), expires in 2014. The urgency of the matter is made stark by the unprecedented march of hundreds of farmers from the Visayas and Mindanao who have converged in Manila in the past few days for a rally in front of Malacañang today (Friday, June 8) that is backed by the Catholic Church. The fact that farmers from the South have made the journey to Manila despite their poor means should impress upon everyone the seriousness of their desire to see that the Aquino administration will distribute the remaining 900,000 hectares of prime agricultural lands before time runs out on Carper.

President Aquino is away and will not be able to meet with the farmers. But Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has issued a statement saying that the government “will try its best to complete the program by the time the Aquino administration completes its term.”

Abad is, of course, speaking realistically. An agrarian reform secretary during the presidency of Corazon C. Aquino, during which the law enabling CARP was enacted, he certainly knows the pitfalls facing land reform. When he opposed the conversion of a large tract of agricultural land in Dasmariñas, Cavite, for the commercial use of the Japanese industrial giant Marubeni, he was pilloried by Cavite congressmen and his own former colleagues in the House of Representatives. He offered to resign and his offer was immediately accepted by Cory Aquino.

Abad’s humiliating experience during the first Aquino administration should provide some light on whether or not the incumbent administration would make good on its promise to deliver on Carper. From his statements, he’s not optimistic that Carper’s targets would be met. His assurances indicate that the program would not be completed on time: “Even if the Carper law expires by 2014, for as long as notices [of coverage] have been issued and the process of acquisition has started, that process up to distribution, we believe, can continue beyond 2014.” He also said the government was dealing mostly with private agricultural lands, “where landowner opposition is strong.” The process of acquisition is “vulnerable, as experience has shown, to all forms of legal, technical and even political disruptions,” he said.

“Disruptions” is a mild way of putting it. The truth is that all sorts of barriers and stumbling blocks may conspire to doom Carper and the farmers’ dream of owning the land they till. This history of disruptions should warn President Aquino that he must exercise political will. His reaction to the Supreme Court decision that rejected with finality his family’s bid to get compensation for Hacienda Luisita Inc. (HLI) based on 2006 prices, which would have allowed his kin to secure at least P5 billion, has been commendable. He has promised to comply with the ruling. But that promise has to be taken with a grain of salt because the Aquino-Cojuangco clan may still pose objections. HLI may still question the compensation base year set by the high court with the Department of Agrarian Reform’s Adjudication Board.

In addition, the HLI decision cannot be used to settle other land reform cases. The justices still need to qualify whether it can be used as basis or precedent for similar cases. This must be made clear because the high court has to resolve 13 other agrarian reform cases.

The sheer number of litigation involving agrarian reform should dampen any expectation that Carper would meet its deadline.  Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick S. Pabillo, head of the National Social Action Center of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, lamented that the incumbent administration has been “consistently underperforming” in implementing Carper, particularly land acquisition and distribution. “The current DAR administration has recorded the lowest CARP accomplishment when compared to all DAR-CARP administrations,” Pabillo said.

But hope springs eternal and the government cannot fail the Filipino farmer. Abad somehow adumbrated this wish—as well as the stiff opposition facing Carper—when he said he “welcomes working with the farmer-beneficiaries, their [civil society] advocates and the bishops to accelerate the process.” In short, vigilance and political muscle are needed to make authentic land reform a less elusive dream.