Solon says bill seeks compensation to landowners

MANILA, Philippines —  A partylist lawmaker on Friday clarified that House Bill 252 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) provides compensation of landowners whose properties will be set aside and distributed to farmer beneficiaries.

Anakpawis partylist Rep. Fernando Hicap said that contrary to reports that the parcels of land will be confiscated sans payment, the bill includes the compensation of landowners.

"HB 252 includes compensation among its provisions contrary to the habitual critique of pro-CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) that GARB is absolutely confiscatory which is in fact just a scare tactic so that landowners would oppose the bill," Hicap said in a statement.

He said that Article 12 of HB 252 provides just compensation to landowners while confiscation as stated in Section 16 pertains only to sullied landholdings or those lands acquired through unscrupulous means.

"The ones that will be confiscated are only those lands grabbed by abusive hacienderos ... big landlords, warlords with private armed groups," Hicap said.

While GARB includes just compensation to landowners except when the lands involved  are sullied, Hicap said Article 5  of the bill seeks free land distribution to poor farmers, as well as the writing off of amortization on lands covered by Presidential Decree 27 and Republic Act 6657 or the CARP law.

It also proposes the recovery of lands taken away from farmer-beneficiaries due to cancellation of their certificates landownership awards, certificates of land transfer and emancipation patents, Hicap said.

Anakpawis also urged different sectors such as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to support the Filipino farmers’ campaign for the passage of GARB. 

The CBCP recently appealed the Aquino government to act on House Bill 4296 or the land acquisition and distribution extension bill.  The CARP law expired June 30, 2014, without an approved bill of the Congress extending the law.

"CARP had a beginning and an end, let us accept that it has ended, we should move on, let us push for the passage of HB 252," Hicap said.

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