Why CARP has failed despite its noble goals

Tonight is the last show on Straight from the Sky for Year 2008. Since the New Year comes this Thursday, consider this also as the first show of Year 2009. In keeping with our holiday season tradition, we won’t be having any heavy discussion of current issues; rather we shall entertain you with songs and dances.

For our 460th show on Straight from the Sky, we bring you the University of San Jose-Recoletos University (USJR) Cultural and Dramatics Ensemble with Ms. Mila Espina who will show us their talents in singing and dancing famous Broadway songs, like Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera and Mama Mia.

See how they have trained their students to be world-class talents whose artistry can be found in the dramatic stages of Broadway in New York or in London’s famous West End. Watch this fun-filled Year-end, Year-beginning musical extravaganza from my alma mater on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8 p.m. tonight.

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It’s almost the end of the Year 2008 and still many knots need to be tied. One of them is the hanging issue, the Comprehensive Land Reform Program (CARP) which through a Joint Senate and Congressional resolution no.19 has been extended for another six months just a few weeks ago before Congress went on Christmas break. Congress hastily issued Resolution no. 19 just to please the militant farmers and the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that has been supporting CARP without realizing the enormous problems it faces.

Already a group of militant farmers dubbed Task Force Mapalad have filed a petition in the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of this Joint Resolution no. 19 because they apparently want more than just a six-month extension. But the bigger problem that government faces is the reality that in this very corrupt society of ours, CARP has not been spared the corruption that plagues almost all government agencies.

While CARP has noble goals, it has shoddy and shady implementation of the laws governing it. As Silverio Berenguer, President of the Council of Agricultural Producers and member of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) told me during a tv interview, CARP has been badly implemented from the start. It’s objective to give land to the landless has forced many landowners to join the ranks of the landless! CARP has a program that does not follow the concept of what is fair and equitable. Worse, those people whose lands have already been taken, still haven’t been paid by the government. Why? We should ask our congressmen!

To add more woes to CARP, those farmers who are truly seeking their own land to till were put at the bottom of the list by corrupt Municipal Agrarian Reform Officers (MARO) who thanks to unbridled corruption gave land to tricycle drivers, teachers, OFWs and even their own MAROs so that they could eventually sell this land for a handsome profit. Some lands, I heard, like in Carcar have been turned into a subdivision, again because of corruption. Let’s ask Congress why this is happening.

Many of these cases were recorded by the PARC and are still in court. Given that the Judiciary hasn’t been spared (the latest I heard is about the Temporary Restraining Orders given by an RTC Judge to stop bank regulators from examining the books of the various Rural banks under the Legacy Group) the evils of corruption, you can just imagine how many judges would eventually decide on these controversial land cases.

Was the extension of CARP for another six-months a step in the right direction? I say it is not! Congress should give CARP a new lease of life; it must first find out where it failed miserably in its implementation. It must plug the leaks that prevent CARP from attaining its noble goals. Congress must find out whether CARP as a program is confiscatory in nature. Supposedly the billions from the so-called Marcos Loot was used to fund the CARP program, yet many landowners still haven’t been paid the money due to them, while their land has already been taken away from them.

For the first time, Year 2008 gave us a picture of what would happen to our country when we experience a severe rice shortage. The poor implementation of CARP has been a major contributor to this problem. Sure, give land to the landless, but give it to real farmers or tillers of the land, not to people who know too well that planting rice is never fun. This is what is wrong with the CARP program. If Congress can’t fix it, then it should never be revived!