Dismantling agrarian reform

The issue that President Aquino would rather forget reared its head during the long holidays devoted to remembering the dead—the slow processing of the redistribution of land in Hacienda Luisita, owned by the President’s family, to its farmworkers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the flagship social reform legislation handed down by his mother, the late President Cory Aquino.

The issue came to a head, after a long respite from the news pages, when the Inquirer published a story on Nov. 2, reporting a bill that had been introduced in the House of Representatives proposing to extend CARP by five years from its expiration in 2014 and that the measure would strengthen some of some of its provisions.

House Bill No. 6614, which was filed by Cagayan Rep. Rufus Rodriguez and his brother, Rep. Maximo Rodriguez of Abante Mindanao, casts doubt on the commitment of the Aquino administration to implement the social reforms of Republic Act No. 9700, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (Carper).

Total madness

The effect of the extension would be to keep in the hands of the owners landed estates for a longer period and delay their distribution to farmworkers deemed as beneficiaries of the agrarian reform program.

Farmers’ groups, mainly the Kilusang Magbubukid Pilipinas (KMP), denounced the proposed extension as “total madness,” saying that the land reform program remained the “milking cow” of landlords.

They recalled that on June 14, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told a press briefing that between now and June  2014, “all agricultural lands shall be covered and distributed to qualified beneficiaries.”

Unrest over the slow pace of transferring ownership of landed estates to tillers mounted amid the continuing high approval and trust ratings of Mr. Aquino in public opinion polls.

The President is currently enjoying praises for his initiatives in concluding a framework agreement for peace in Mindanao with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on the Bangsamoro homeland.

But the reaction of Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes to the proposal stoked unrest in the agrarian sector, especially in Hacienda Luisita.

He said that extending the acquisition and distribution of agricultural land until 2019 (after the term of the President expires in 2016) would be “one of the options” he would present to the President before the start of the next regular session of Congress.

“If you have a law extending the program,” he said, “that’s not bad.”

De los Reyes added that between now and 2014, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)  aims to cover more than 900,000 hectares of land. This includes 300,000 ha of landholdings below 10 ha and 600,000 above 10 ha.

The DAR hopes to issue notices of coverage for landholdings above 10 ha by December this year and for landholdings below 10 ha, by July 2013.

The slow pace of the distribution of land has opened the Aquino administration to criticism of its commitment and political will to implement social reform in the sector where rural poverty is widespread.

Undersecretary Abigail Valte, deputy presidential spokesperson, made the muddle worse by telling reporters that Malacañang could not make a comment until it saw a copy of the bill filed by the Rodriguez brothers.

In filing the bill, its authors pointed out that the agrarian reform program had been behind schedule 25 years after it was launched by President Cory Aquino.

According to the bill, the DAR is far from meeting its 2012 target of of processing 180,000 ha of land. It has processed only about 32,000 ha. The DAR plans to acquire 17,524 ha of land under leasehold agreements this year but latest figures show it has processed only 7,724 ha.

This record prompted the peasant organization KMP to say the CARP was the “longest running and most expensive agrarian reform program in the world.”

The group cited government records showing that from 1972 to June 2005, the total approved Land Bank of the Philippines compensation to 83,203 landowners for 1.3 million hectares has reached P41.6 billion in cash and bonds, or an average of P500,463 per landlord.

On Nov. 2., Rappler reported online that the DAR said it would accomplish its target land distribution despite the bill seeking the extension of the agrarian reform program up to 2019.

Rappler said DAR would press on issuance of notices of coverage commencing “the compulsory acquisition of private agricultural lands coverable under the CARP.”

Nearly 1 million hectares of country’s agricultural estates remain to be partitioned to workers before the CARP ends in June 2014.

Litmus test

Last week, the DAR announced that it had hammered out a list of provisional beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita, nearly a year after the Supreme Court unanimously decided to distribute the estate among its workers. The land distribution in the hacienda is considered the litmus test of the administration’s commitment to agrarian reform, which makes a mockery of his self-righteous slogan, “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”

The agrarian reform program is caught in the trap of bureaucratic timidity and lack of budgetary support. For example, an Inquirer report of June 6, 2012, said that Malacañang had announced that the President would make his “best effort to implement fully the agrarian reform program before he steps down in 2016.”

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad issued the statement before a big rally of farmers at Malacañnang at the end of a 10-day march from various points of Mindanao and Negros Occidental to seek a firm commitment from the President that he would distribute the remaining 900,000 hectares of prime agricultural lands before the program’s end in 2014.

But the records do not show Mr. Aquino delivering on the pledge. The Carper law provides for a P150-billion outlay. Under the Aquino administration, the program remains underfunded.

This year, Abad cut down a proposed P30-billion budget to P18 billion and removed another P4.9 billion in technical support and credits.

According to an Inquirer report, quoting sources inside the DAR, the department itself was in the process of being dismantled, its functions to be farmed out to various departments.