In lieu of CARP extension, House okays land acquisition, distribution

MANILA, Philippines – Failing to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which expired last Tuesday, the House instead approved late Tuesday night a resolution authorizing land acquisition and distribution under CARP up to the end of this year.

Speaker Prospero Nograles, Majority Leader Arthur Defensor, Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia, and Reps. Edcel Lagman of Albay and Luis Villafuerte of Camarines Sur introduced Joint Resolution 21 after it became clear that the House no longer had time to approve the bill seeking the extension of CARP for five years.

A brief commotion followed Defensor’s admission that the chamber could no longer pass the extension measure.

Scores of farmers and their supporters, including nuns, who had been watching the proceedings shouted at congressmen in protest over their “inaction” on the bill.

At least three protesters jumped from the gallery into the session hall, but security officers promptly seized them and brought them out.

Security personnel and policemen later cleared the gallery of protesters.

Nograles said it was necessary for the House and the Senate to authorize the acquisition and distribution of private agricultural land under CARP for an additional six months since funds for this purpose are good up to Dec. 31, 2008.

This would also give congressmen “more time to study and generate consensus on appropriate amendments to the agrarian reform law,” he said.

In the resolution, the two chambers would bind themselves, through their respective agrarian reform committees, to draft a “definitive bill” to extend CARP until December.

The draft measure would have “perfecting major reforms” that would correct the defects of CARP.

Nograles said while Congress failed to extend CARP, the approval of Resolution 21 is nonetheless a major victory for farmers.

It is estimated that about 1.8 million hectares of land, including three large sugar plantations owned by the family of President Arroyo’s husband First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo in Negros Occidental, still have to be distributed to their tenants.

Lagman, principal sponsor of the CARP extension bill, agreed with Nograles that the approval of Resolution 21 is a victory of sorts for farmers.

He said with the approval of the resolution, farmers “have won a signal battle but not yet the war in the campaign for a five-year extension” of CARP.

He said the House leadership decided to pass the resolution instead of the extension bill “to afford Congress ample time to debate on the proposed reforms and cure the flaws in the implementation of CARP prior to the enactment of a definitive extension.”

“The joint resolution embodies the unequivocal will of Congress to extend the land acquisition and distribution component and institute perfecting reforms consistent with the clamor of agrarian reform advocates,” he said.

He added that the resolution, once approved by the House, the Senate and President Arroyo, “will have the force and effect of a law.”

With the support of some of his co-authors, including Rep. Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan, Lagman had batted for the passage of a simple extension measure with the proposed reforms to be embodied in a separate bill.

However, many of his colleagues opposed his proposal since that would also mean extending CARP’s flaws.

On the part of the Senate, besides the introduction of reforms, several senators want to find out how the hundreds of billions in agrarian reform funds have been spent.

In particular, Sen. Joker Arroyo wants to know how the more than $650 million in Marcos Swiss bank deposits, which the government had recovered and became part of the Agrarian Reform Fund, were used.

According to a Commission on Audit report, nearly P500 million of the Marcos funds was used to augment the P728 million in fertilizer funds that President Arroyo ordered released to her allies shortly before the 2004 presidential election.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) refuted yesterday the claim of the Senate that it failed to account for the funds used for the implementation of CARP, saying it actually submitted to legislators the documents for a full accounting of the agrarian reform fund.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman said they submitted the documents explaining the use of the CARP funds, including those of other CARP-implementing agencies, to the Senate Committee on Agrarian Reform, as required by Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

Pangandaman said P162 billion was earmarked for the CARP from 1987-2007. Included in the fund is the P72.171-billion that came from the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which consisted of the Marcos Swiss accounts recovered and remittances from sequestered properties.

He said that other fund sources of the CARP implementation included those from the General Appropriations Act, amounting to P55.997 billion; Asset Privatization Trust, P25.936 billion; and incomes and interest from agrarian operations worth P7.902 billion.

Pangandaman said only P24.511 billion of the P35.043 billion Marcos Swiss bank accounts recovered in 2004 was included in the P72.171-billion remittances by the PCGG, and that the Bureau of Treasury still holds the P10 billion, which was earmarked for human rights victims.

He said that 94 percent or P150.016 billion of the P159.284-billion was used by the CARP implementing agencies such as DAR, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), and Department of Agriculture (DA), among others, for the different activities implemented under the three major components of CARP.

Based on the report of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), which was submitted to the Senate, a total of P99.776 billion was used for the land tenure improvement; P23.229 billion for program beneficiaries’ development; P1.221 billion for agrarian justice delivery; and P18.722 billion for foreign-assisted projects. It also indicated that P6.996 billion went to Fund 101, or operational expenses.

The PARC report said that only the P159.284 billion was covered by a Special Allotment Release Order (SARO), which means that P11.984 billion remain purportedly with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

In a related development, a word war has erupted between Hontiveros and leftist party-list representatives led by Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna, who opposed the bill simply extending CARP without reforms.

In a joint statement, Ocampo and three colleagues labeled as “malicious and irresponsible” Hontiveros’ claim that leftist organizations were out to “maim, cripple or kill” agrarian reform.

Akbayan and Bayan Muna have different views on what “genuine” agrarian reform means. For instance, Akbayan wants agrarian reform beneficiaries to be able to sell their lands. Bayan Muna claims this would weaken the “precept of land to the tiller” and would encourage farmers to sell their land, instead of tilling it.

On another point, Akbayan wants beneficiaries to amortize their land, while Bayan Muna is proposing that the state expropriate private land and distribute them free of charge to farmers.

President Arroyo would no longer call for special sessions for the passage of the bill extending CARP now that it has been determined that Congress has until December to pass the measure.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita noted that Congress has accepted the position of the executive branch that the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component of the CARP would expire in December and not last June 10.

The House has approved a resolution and according to Ermita, the leadership of the chamber told him that the Senate has also accepted this position.

Ermita said Speaker Prospero Nograles and Majority Leader Arthur Defensor informed the President over lunch that they could no longer pass the bill extending CARP for another five years before they adjourn this week.

The President actually certified the bill as urgent but in spite of this and the prodding of various farmer organizations, Congress failed to pass the measure.

Pangandaman said that the resolution was passed to clarify that the LAD would end in December and that the government has funds to carry this out.

Pangandaman explained that the LAD already had an allocation in the 2008 national budget until December and they should have no problem.

Now that this has been settled, Congress has until December to pass the bill, which would extend CARP for another five years. – With Katherine Adraneda, Marvin Sy