CARP expires this month

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines   â€“ The Philippines will no longer have a land reform law next month after Congress adjourned without passing the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) which expires this June 30.

But farmers are happy over this development because they want CARP to be replaced by a “genuine land reform law.”

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said yesterday farmers are expected to launch a series of protests to demand free land distribution and to intensify land cultivation campaigns in the countryside.

“Now that the CARP’s days are numbered and there is no more sham land distribution program come June 30, we call on the Filipino peasantry to further heighten the struggle and demand for a new and genuine land reform law,” KMP chair Rafael Mariano said.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate failed to pass House Bill 4296 and Senate Bill 2188 which seek to extend the CARP for another two years by allowing the Department of Agrarian Reform to issue notices of coverage up to June 30, 2016.

President Aquino even certified as urgent the proposed CARP extension bill.

“Congress’ failure to extend Aquino’s bogus land reform program is a result of millions of CARP victims’ collective determination to junk the program,” Mariano said.

“Twenty-six years of CARP-sponsored land grab and bloodshed in the countryside is enough. Any attempt to resurrect a dead horse like CARP despite its failure of epic proportions is pure stupidity,” he said.

The KMP urged Congress, which resumes session next month, to “immediately tackle House Bill 252 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill that seeks to break landlord control and monopoly of lands through the nationalization and free distribution of lands to landless farmers.”