EDITORIAL- The promise of agrarian reform

From Diosdado Macapagal to Ferdinand Marcos to the post-martial law years starting with the administration of Corazon Aquino, the government has tried to make agrarian reform work. Marcos, with his absolute powers, decreed a limit of seven hectares per individual ownership of land planted to rice and corn, in a move that initially blunted opposition to martial law by peasant groups. After EDSA I, Congress passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, expanding Marcos’ program to other agricultural lands but providing loopholes that landowning legislators exploited to evade the redistribution of their estates. 

Those loopholes were retained until the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law lapsed in June last year. CARL was extended for six months, at the end of which some 1.3 million hectares of land remained to be redistributed. Billions of pesos in payments to landowners covered by the program also remained unpaid, locked in disputes over valuation.

Yesterday President Arroyo signed Republic Act 9700, extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program for another five years. RA 9700, or the CARP Extension and Reform law, allocates P1.5 billion for agrarian reform, distributed over five years. Sixty percent of the budget will go to land acquisition while the rest will be for farm support services.

In the two decades that the CARP law was in effect, agrarian reform suffered from the lack of sufficient support services to make small farms viable. There weren’t enough farm-to-market roads, processing and distribution facilities, irrigation and market support. Farm production also suffered in recent years from the scandal arising from the use of fertilizer funds during the 2004 presidential campaign. That scandal, involving former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante, is unresolved.

The extended CARP law acknowledges the weaknesses of the original program and aims to address the lack of farm support services. This is a step in the right direction and should offer some hope for farmers who are waiting to benefit from agrarian reform. But the new law does not address the loopholes that have been used by owners of large landholdings, among them the President’s family, to evade redistribution of their estates. In this developing country, agrarian reform has long been envisioned as a major catalyst for rural development and poverty alleviation. That vision has yet to be achieved.