Why Extend CARP?

Why Extend CARP?

 Contrary to opinions of some politicians who say that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has expired last June 10, 2008, this is not accurate since only the funding for the Land Acquisition and Distribution (LAD) component of the CARP may be considered to have expired, that is, until December, 2008. CARP implementation  is composed of several components, such as, land acquisition and distribution, there is also the support services component such as provision of irrigation facilities, post harvest facilities, farm to market roads (and bridges), increasing productivity and income, rural enterprises, access to credit, organizational management, gender and development, etc.

            Under the land acquisition and distribution component, around 1.1 million hectares have yet to be distributed after 2008. this requires additional funding because government has to pay the owners of the land before it can be distributed to the agrarian reform beneficiaries.

            Section 4 of Article XIII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution provides that, “The State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian reform founded on the right of the farmers and regular farm workers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the case of other farm workers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof. To this end, the State shall encourage and undertake the just distribution of all agricultural lands, subject to such priorities and reasonable retention limits as Congress may prescribe, taking into account ecological, developmental, or equity considerations, and subject to the payment of just compensation. In determining retention limits, the State shall respect the right of small landowners. The State shall further provide incentives for voluntary land sharing.”

            Republic Act No. 6657 (CARP) therefore may be considered as the law implementing Section 4, Article XIII of the Philippine Constitution. However, it is simply ran out of funds. Hence, there is a need to appropriate funds for the same to implement the constitutional mandate on agrarian reform. If CARP is not extended, we will have no funds to acquire and distribute the 1.1 million hectares of agricultural lands in favor of the farmer-beneficiaries. Also, there are support services projects that have been approved but have been pending implementation because funding for these projects depend on the extension of CARP. These projects are already in the pipeline amounting to Php17 billion. We would also lose whatever we have gained in the fight against poverty in the rural areas, as numerous studies from independent institutions (not government) have found out through research that under the CARP, there have been improvements in the standard of living of Filipino farmers. The establishment and development of strategies such as the Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs) made the fight against poverty a success.

            One significant CARP impact study was conducted by Dr. Arsenio Balisacan and his team of researchers, who concluded that there are more irrigated farmlands in ARCs than in non-ARCs, that the decrease in economic facilities are greater in non-ARC barangays than in ARC barangays; that barangays in ARCs have better access to markets; that barangays in ARCs have more per capita income expenditure than in non-ARCs; that non-monetary indicators of welfare (better quality of housing materials used, etc) showed there are more such households in the ARCs than in non-ARCs. More importantly, farmers in ARCs and non-ARCs who owned the land they cultivate showed that they have better per capita income, per capita expenditure, etc., than those who did not own the land they till. The study categorically showed that land ownership and control is very important in income determination.

            Although President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has declared in the 2008 State of the Nation Address (SONA) that CARP extension is a top priority, the outcome of the same still rest on the hands of the members of Congress. Will the fight against poverty in the countryside be sustained through CARP? The answer lies in Congress and they have up to the end of the year to show their concern for the Filipino farmers and their families. After all, social justice mandates that those who have less in life should have more in law. /Christian D. Sales