END THE MADNESS THAT IS CARPER, ENACT GARB NOW!

We, the National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates-Youth (NNARA-Youth), vehemently condemn the current maneuvers to extend once more the moribund, anti-farmer, and pro-landlord Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). We remain firm in our stand, with the Filipino peasantry, that CARPER have not resolved and have in fact intensified the rampant landlessness in the country.  Any attempt to reinforce or extend the anti-farmer program would be detrimental to the centuries-old demand for land and social justice. Another extension of CARPER would then once again mean another setback to attaining national economic independence and social equity.

Instead, we uphold the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) or House Bill 252 as the only proposed bill that extensively reflects and addresses the genuine demands and aspirations of Filipino farmers: free land distribution, sullied land acquisition, and progressive support services for the farmers are the pillars of GARB. Contrary to the corruption-ridden, fake, and pro-landlord CARPER, the proposed law envisions and lays down the foundation for national industrialization, which will promote genuine economic freedom for the country.

Extending CARPER, Prolonging Madness

Inefficient and corruption-ridden. Recent maneuvers to amend and complete CARPER laid bare the truth – that rampant landlessness and rural poverty still exist even after 25 years since the inception of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), the predecessor of CARPER. Notorious for intensifying landlessness and indigence in the rural areas, CARPER have outlived its goal to provide social justice as it expires in June 2014.  

CARPER is the most protracted and most expensive land reform program in Asia. In fact  together with Marcos’ PD 27, it has squandered 259 billion worth of people’s taxes from 1972 to 2012 (at rates unadjusted to inflation). While, out of the 5.37 million hectares of its shrunk target for distribution, only 84% or 4.49 million-hectares were given notices of coverage (NOCs), smaller still were the lands distributed. Inefficient as it is, in the 95 percentile private lands it has targeted from the supposed balance of CARP; only 30% of these were covered by NOCs and next to nil was distributed. Also, the Agrarian Reform Communities Level Development Assessment (ALDA) of 2011 itself asserted that 54% of beneficiaries fell below poverty line despite estimated 12.9B of total spending for ARCs every ten years. Poverty amidst supposed benefit from equity and subsidy! 

Pro-landlord from inception. CARPER has not only failed to distribute its target land area but also aggravated land concentration; no different from the former land reform programs of the government such as PD 27 and the Land Reform Code under Marcos and Macapagal regimes, respectively. 

Instead of seizing and confiscating sullied and large landholdings, the program pays the landlords using the country’s coffers. It has already given landlords P41.6B from 1972 to 2005 as compensation for being covered by land reform. What is more chilling is the fact that CARPER raised compensation to an unprecedented level – the landlords determine the lands’ value. It then “distributes” (read: sells) the land to beneficiaries, to be paid in a tedious and unequal process of amortization for 30 years with a 6% interest rate. Since 1972, only 9.4% of beneficiaries have finished paying amortization according to Land Bank itself. Not only does it grant landlords sole rights to appraise their lands, but also the power to name beneficiaries. No wonder farmers have been buried in debt and have been forced down the poverty line!

As a result, reconcentration of lands back to landlords has been widespread as farmers are forced to enter barbaric and crude land lease agreements, mortgage, and sale. In fact, in a report last 2006, DAR itself reaffirmed the worsening of the land problem as as early as 1996, “the proportion of farmer beneficiaries in any village who have had a sale transaction on land despite it being illegal ranged from 7% to 100%.” In many cases, so-called “distributed” lands return to the hands of original landlords after 2-3 years.  

As if not enough, CARPER also provided sections to circumvent then exploit the supposed land reform. Landlords can opt for non-distributive schemes such as the Stock Distribution Option, where farmers are given stock shares instead of actual land as in the infamous Hacienda Luisita of Cojuangco-Aquinos. Agribusiness Venture Agreements where corporations lease the land e.g. Del Monte in Mindanao; and the notorious Voluntary Offer to Sell/Voluntary Land Transfer where farmers are duped to amortize without actual physical land distribution. 

Furthermore, Sec. 22 of CARPER contradicts land distribution by allowing agricultural lands to be exempted from coverage through various schemes of land-use conversions and distribution exclusions. In fact, even lands covered and “distributed” through PD 27 and CARP have fallen prey to this (e.g. 1,644 hectares of land awarded to more than 1,000 farmer-beneficiaries in Barangay Maskap, Montalban, Rizal under PD 27 claimed by landlord family Gregorio-Araneta; 10,000 farmers and fisherfolk CARP beneficiaries of over 8,650 hectares of prime agricultural lands in Hacienda Looc, Nasugbu, Batangas revoked for Ayala and Henry Sy’s business interests; and 1,800 hectares Hacienda Puyat in Batangas among others). Hence, CARPER was never in any way intended to distribute lands to landless farmers, but to save large estates of landlords and let them profit in the process to the detriment of farmers!

Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill

Rampant landlessness of farmers has plagued not only the countryside populace but the Philippine economy as well. The longstanding failure to address this has rendered our economy weak and its politics volatile. The ever-growing struggle to assert genuine agrarian reform has long called for the junking of this bogus land reform.  

Moreover, peasant organizations and advocates have lobbied since the 14th Congress for the enactment of GARB or currently HB252. The said bill clearly outlines the way to achieving genuine agrarian reform. Unlike CARPER, GARB reflects and advances farmers’ legitimate objectives. 

Compulsory acquisition of sullied lands. GARB lays down distinct historical and farmer-centric parameters in investigating and validating sullied lands, and compulsory acquisition. It reinforces the available weak mechanisms against foreign business plunder by including lands owned or controlled by multinational and transnational agribusinesses. Furthermore, it offers compensation to landowners of non-sullied lands. 

Free land distribution. GARB, in a 5 year time frame, will distribute lands and return sullied lands to farmers for free. Without the burden of amortization, it will pave the way for swift social justice and ensure land security for the farmers. It has also created mechanisms to prevent reconcentration of lands through nationalization or banning of selling and mortgaging distributed lands.

Progressive and people-centered support services. It also laid down an extensive program to support and sustain the impetus of genuine agrarian reform. It consists mainly of setting-up of cooperatives to increase productivity and improve resilience against usury and profiteering schemes that has pestered the farmers. Also, GARB will create mechanisms to guarantee farmers control over their produces for fair and consistent product prices, production support, pre and post-harvest facilities, marketing, and research and technology. 

Never was a bill as true to its objectives as GARB. For one, it breaks the monopoly of land; and provides progressive rural development; and ultimately aims for national industrialization. By liberating the farmers from the age-old shackles of landlessness, it creates a stable market for budding national industries; increase in productivity and a broadening of potentials for cottage-industry proliferation and development. 

Youth for GARB

Generally, the Filipino youth can trace its lineage to a peasant class and for a country where farmers comprise majority of the population, it is but necessary that we partake in the struggle for genuine agrarian reform. We are a potent force, if united with the toiling masses, in the fight to end landlessness and feudal exploitation in the countryside.

In this light, we call upon the youth to advance the call of the Filipino peasantry to end the madness that is CARPER and vie for genuine economic independence and social justice through GARB.