Coming soon: The end of CARP

I’m off to New York City early tomorrow morning for my first vacation since the year 2006 with my family. The last time I was in NYC was a year after the 9/11 Terrorist incident. I guess the time is right for me to visit the Big Apple, a city I learned to love since I stayed there for five full months way back in September 1972 right before Martial Law was declared. While I will be doing advance columns this week… most of the forthcoming columns will be about my travels to the good old USA.

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My good friend, Silverio Berenguer, landowner representative of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, emailed me his letter about the coming end of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) by June 30 this year, wherein he wrote to Leandro A. Caymo, director of the Bureau of Land Tenure Improvement of the Department of Agrarian Reform, his concerns. Since the letter is quite long, I will only put in some excerpts.

Berenguer was concerned about those full-page “Notices of Coverage” that have been coming out in our national dailies from the office of Caymo. As Berenguer pointed out, “In these ads are named numerous landowners and the areas supposedly to be covered by CARP Law — yet it would appear that many of these are misleading and erroneous. I know quite a few of them; others have called me to inquire why their names are there when their property is already exempted from coverage.

I am curious as to why you would cause such misleading information to be published when surely the DAR has (or should have) all the necessary documentation to back up these notices? In a recent ad, my brother’s name was among those listed, although he passed away in 1980! Moreover, the property being given notice of coverage has long been developed into a subdivision by his widow and children.”

I totally agree with Berenguer that such information is a deception. We know too well that names of many politicians with huge landholdings are not listed in the DAR’s newspaper notices. If you scrutinize the letter that Berenguer sent to me…we may have stumbled into another potential scam where big names of politicians were illegally removed. By who? Pray tell us Mr. Caymo what really is the truth here?

Mind you, CARP came from CARL with the noble goal of giving land to the landless. But then Pres. Cory Aquino excluded her Hacienda Luisita from CARP by issuing a Stock Dividend Option (SDO), which has been ruled out to be illegal. Hence, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled in favor of the farmers to get back Hacienda Luisita.

It is for this very reason why President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III had SC Chief Justice Renato Corona “punished” by impeachment and conviction using the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to release P100 million in pork barrel funds to our Senators (this is found in the DBM report) to convict CJ Corona. It was a personal family vendetta by the Aquinos, which is why our nation today is so unstable.

I dare say by June 30, let CARL die a natural death because the DAR didn’t properly handle it. At this point, allow me to state that my family has a property in Bohol, which was taken by DAR under CARL, but it had a loan with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), which DAR cannot legally acquire. I’m sure that there are thousands of horror stories coming from the wrong implementation of CARL.

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Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday and call it timely that the Catholic Laity Conference of the Philippines (CLCP) constitution was approved during Pentecost Sunday, dubbed as the birthday of the Catholic Church. Also last Sunday was the first anniversary of the Consecration of the Philippines to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Call it a divine coincidence that this new totally lay organization was born on these historic dates during the Year of the Laity.

Many of our faithful readers who belong to Catholic or Charismatic organizations are anxiously awaiting the creation of the CLCP. So for those of you who are interested in joining the CLCP… we can send you a copy of our final constitution. You can email the CLCP in these two email addresses, [email protected] or at [email protected]. Michelle Yap will answer all your queries.

Let me point out that the CLCP will have its first Congress this coming Dec. 8 and membership is open for all lay organizations that have a good track record in supporting the Catholic Church. All this began with the 12 members of the Task Force for Family & Life (TFFL) who will act as an ad-hoc secretariat until a permanent one is created. God bless you all.

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Email: [email protected] or [email protected]