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The Department of Agrarian Reform is set to lobby in Congress the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which is expected to end in July next year, according to DAR Undersecretary Gerundio Madueño recently.

Madueño, in a meeting of the Visayas Program Beneficiaries Development, said he would seek help from the Center for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific for its endorsement of a congressional approval of the CARP extension.

The agrarian official said that, in the forthcoming CIRDAP annual convention, he would raise the issue and asked its member-countries to sign a covenant of support, which will be used later for lobbying in Congress the CARP extension.

The main reason for extending CARP is the discovery of a total of 1.4 million hectares nationwide that can still be put under the program to benefit about 600,000 farmer-beneficiaries, said Madueño.

In Central Visayas alone, agrarian reform director Datu Yusoph Mama said records from the Land Registration Authority showed that about 80,000 hectares could still be placed under CARP for about 40,000 farmer-beneficiaries.

There are now 91 agrarian reform communities in Central Visayas with over 5000 agrarian reform beneficiaries.

Besides the “new” lands still available for CARP, Madueño said there are at least a million farmer-beneficiaries that need to be given support services to make them earn income from the land they received.

Madueño said the DAR has limited budget so the bulk of the funds for support services-schools, farm-to-market roads, micro-finance, livelihood program, and irrigation, etc.-had been coming from foreign assistance.

“If the support is cut, then poverty remains, as they would not know how to make use of their land; This brings us back again to the problem on insurgency, peace and order,” said Madueño, who is also the project implementation officer for foreign-assisted projects.

DAR regional official Antonio del Socorro, for his part, said even if CARP would no longer cover land distribution, the government should still continue extending support to farmer-beneficiaries.

Del Socorro said the present aids for CARP funds are from the Belgian Integrated Agrarian Reform Programs, the World Bank, and the Agrarian Reform Infrastructure Support System from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Philippine Australian Technical Support for Rural Development. — Ferliza C. Contratista/RAE