GMA to certify as urgent bill on CARP extension

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo is expected to certify as urgent the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program which is set to end on June 10.

According to Presidential Management Staff director general Cerge Remonde, the extension of the CARP was one of the issues the President discussed with him yesterday.

Since the House committee on agrarian reform has already come up with a committee report on the extension of the CARP, Remonde said that the President can now certify the bill as urgent.

Both the House and the Senate are looking at a five-year extension of the CARP until 2013.

The Department of Agrarian Reform initially proposed a 10-year extension so that the government could complete its conversion of around two million hectares of land placed under the CARP.

“I think the President will certify (the bill) as urgent because the House version has already passed the committee level. Only when it is passed at the committee level can the President certify it as urgent,” Remonde said in an interview over dzRB.

Remonde said the President reiterated her desire to include a provision in the bill that would allow farmers to use their lands as collateral for loans.

He said Mrs. Arroyo wants to see the farmers become agri-scientists or businessmen and this could be accomplished if they have access to formal credit.

“Because the CARP would be toothless if these provisions that would give power to the farmers are left out,” Remonde said.

“We will work to make the Agrarian Reform Law more comprehensive. In order to work, it should not be limited to the redistribution of lands,” he added.

In a related development, Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. yesterday called for an inventory of CARP lands and an accounting of the program’s funds.

Pimentel said with only a few days before the expiration of the CARP, DAR Secretary Nasser Pangandaman has not yet submitted a report on how the program was implemented and how funds were spent.

“We cannot allow CARP to be used as a plaything of people in power. We are forgetting that the objective of CARP is to help those who have no land to acquire lands, the tenant farmers,” Pimentel told reporters during the Weekly Kapihan sa Sulo Hotel forum in Quezon City.

Pimentel added that the list of the Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA) granted to farmer-beneficiaries all over the country must also be checked to determine whether these are still in their possession. – With Perseus Echeminada