OFFICE OF AKBAYAN PARTY-LIST REP. TOM VILLARIN
S513 South Wing Building, Batasan Complex, Batasan Hills, Quezon City
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a personal and collective privilege to tackle a historical conflict rooted on social justice and human rights. Fighting inequality is a core objective that our government must address if we want to move on and achieve our desired goal of peace and sustainable development. And to me, agrarian reform and other social justice issues are the “bread and butter” of this hallowed institution.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte made an emphatic commitment to agrarian reform when he nominated no less than a former esteemed member of the House and a genuine peasant leader, Secretary Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano. His stewardship of the DAR will mean that finally, our farmers will have a true champion leading real change in government. For that, our fervent wishes for his success and may the struggle for genuine agrarian reform be finally resolved under his watch.
This year marks the 29th year after Congress passed an historic Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law in 1988. The law is pursuant to a constitutional mandate, Article II Section 21 of the 1987 Constitution --- “The State shall promote comprehensive rural development and agrarian reform.”
This is also in consonance with Article 12, Section 1 on National Economy and Patrimony that promotes a “more equitable distribution of opportunities, income, and wealth targeting especially the under-privileged through sound agricultural development and agrarian reform.”
And finally, a separate constitutional mandate, Article 13 on Agrarian and Natural Resources Reform provided the framework by which agricultural lands, both private and public, are to be redistributed to farmers and farmworkers actually tilling on the land, subject to retention limits to be provided for by Congress and the right of landowners to just compensation. It should be remembered that prior to the CARP and the 1987 Constitution, land reform was already attempted but the contentious issue of what lands are covered and form of ownership by farmer-beneficiaries were not addressed.
Under CARP, there are two main beneficiaries: farmers actually tilling the land and regular farmworkers. The general strategy is that the State expropriates or takes away the land subject to due process and just compensation. All private agricultural lands are covered but several lands were later exempted through judicial legislation. Also, landowners are allowed to retain three hectares of their lands. Landowners who have tenant-farmers who till lands under retention limits are afforded tenurial security through leasehold agreement or contract that provides for a 75-25 sharing arrangement in favor of the tenant/s.
For public alienable and disposable lands, these could be distributed to actual tillers and settlers subject to prior rights, homestead rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples within their ancestral lands. For other types of public lands, the tenurial instrument afforded to the landless farmers occupying them would be through stewardship. For indigenous peoples, the Indigenous People’s Rights Act provide for the recognition and titling of ancestral lands under the principle of their ownership of said lands since “time immemorial.”
Mr. Speaker, for CARP to be effective, it has to be targeted, time-bound, and sufficient funds allocated for Land Acquisition and Distribution and for Support Services Delivery. For it to be targeted, an inventory of lands to be covered had to be undertaken by the Department of Agrarian Reform. Such inventory shall look into the ownership of lands, estates, plantations and other landholdings and that the DAR shall issue a notice of coverage to them. For it to be time-bound, the State shall fix a timetable for LAD and should allocate funds for just compensation of landowners for a 10-year period that was later extended for another 10 years and another 5 years.
For CARP to be meaningful, the farmer-beneficiaries should be empowered and would have improved their income and productivity. This necessitates state intervention in the form of timely and relevant support services delivery in the form of infrastructure, credit, market access and support, capacity building, and other means for farmer beneficiaries to increase their productivity. Such support services should be integrated into the agency budget not only of DAR but that of the DA, DPWH, government financial institutions, and other institutions identified under CARP.
Mr. Speaker, let me make a brief narrative of CARP under several administrations since its passage in June 10, 1988.
Under President Cory Aquino, the implementation of CARP was highly contentious as landowner resistance was high and continues to be so even up to this day. Evasion of the spirit and intent of agrarian reform started when modes other than direct land transfer happened like the stock distribution option in Aquino’s Hacienda Luisita. Agricultural plantations were given a 10-year deferment period for them to be covered. Later, the so-called leaseback arrangements in plantations became the mode wherein farmworkers would “lease back” the land distributed to them to the corporations that run the plantations. The supposed farmworker-owners would be allowed to be workers again in the plantations.
The policies on agrarian reform under the Ramos administration focused on accelerating the direct land transfer and non-land transfer by prioritizing public agricultural lands for coverage and segmentation of private agricultural lands by sizes of landholdings. Thus, under Ramos lands more than 50 hectares were covered first and the rest of landholdings being the most numerous would be last. This is why the backlog in the coverage of private agricultural lands was still high when the first 10-year period of CARP lapsed in 1998. Thus, the law was amended particularly Section 63 of CARL to increase the fund of this project to P100 billion from an initial P50-B with an extension for another 10 years. The fund received a boost when the money forfeited from Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth was recovered by the PCGG. The law provides that proceeds from the recovery of the Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth will accrue to agrarian reform.
Under the Estrada administration, another land redistribution scheme was implemented called the “corporative arrangement.” This mode supposedly would fast-track land acquisition and distribution by making farmers and LOs enter into joint ventures, contract farming and other marketing arrangements. His administration, however, was cut short.
Under Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the second 10-year period lapsed with government still facing a backlog in land redistribution. RA 9700, or the CARP Extension with Reforms or CARPER was passed with a new deadline for redistributing the remaining 1.2-M hectares of plantations and private agricultural lands until June 30, 2014. The new law also amended several provisions of RA 6657 instituting reforms to accelerate the implementation of CARP. A Congressional Oversight Committee on Agrarian Reform was established to oversee and monitor its implementation and at least another P150-B was appropriated for its implementation.
However, as of February 2014, the DAR reported to COCAR that some 790,671 hectares of CARPable lands remain to be covered with another 283,473 hectares without notices of coverage. These lands are mostly large landholding under compulsory acquisition. With the lapse of RA 9700 in doing mandatory coverage in 2014, the program of distributing lands to farmer-beneficiaries is in limbo. It is the opinion of this manifestation that CARP coverage has to continue even after June 2014 as the CARPER law states that cases on the matter which are still pending “shall be allowed to proceed to its finality and be executed even beyond such date.”
Mr. Speaker, under the present Duterte administration, there are major challenges for agrarian reform. Last June 10, 2016, major agrarian reform groups and networks including social action centers of dioceses convened to discuss these challenges. This representation was able to discuss with them their various concerns and issues.
Among them are the following:
1) the continuous rationalization and evaluation of the DAR bureaucracy from the national down to the municipal/barangay levels, enforcing sanctions and penalties to inefficient and/or corrupt officials or employees in accordance with law. At present, we have an “aging” DAR bureaucracy that was set up since the 70s;
2) the need to amend or repeal controversial ‘anti-farmer policies’ instituted by DAR, upon intra-agency evaluation and consultation with affected farmers, and the institutionalization of regular dialogue/consultations.
3) The need to make the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) headed by no less than the President to take charge of all highly contentious and controversial agrarian reform cases. Instead of taking a circuitous route from the PARAD, RARAD and the DARAB, these cases be brought to the PARC or the Office of the President for immediate disposition. This will provide farmers the right to a speedy administration and resolution of their cases.
4) The need to create a Special Task Force by Secretary Mariano to handle evaluation of CLOAs, installation of uninstalled beneficiaries, investigate illegal land conversion cases, human rights violations against FBs; and undertake a financial audit of CARP;
5) The need to expedite the Rules on Beneficiary Installation highlighting penalties for non-compliance, putting precautionary signages for would-be violators. A general rule should be established that when a CLOA is already issued to farmers, they have already the right to possess and enter into their lands without the need for a Writ of Installation. The DAR and PNP shall provide assistance and support to the farmer-beneficiaries in all installation processes;
6) The need to facilitate resolution of conflicting claims of beneficiaries under the jurisdiction of DAR, DENR, NCIP with regards to public lands and ancestral lands and to fast-track issuance of tenurial instruments to secure the rights of farmer-tillers and occupants without degrading the rights of IPs to their ancestral lands;
7) The need to review “second generation” problems on Land Tenure Improvement (LTI) with regards to continuing beneficiary issues related to ownership, on amortization payments to the Landbank, and improving productivity of CARPed lands.
8) The need to pass a National Land Use Act that will rationalize the use of a scarce resource, agricultural lands, to primarily address food security and rural development over other non-agricultural priorities. This will likewise resolve issues over powers of land reclassification of LGUs and conversion powers solely reserved to DAR;
9) The need to formulate policies that will protect our farmers on the impact of free trade agreements, liberalization of agriculture, subsidies and spikes in prices of food commodities, and climate change to make our farmers climate-resilience and mitigate their vulnerabilities; and lastly Mr. Speaker,
10) The need to strengthen farmer-beneficiary organizations through continuous trainings on self-organizing, productivity improvement, organic agriculture, paralegalism, conflict resolution through legal empowerment, and engagement with government over entitlements and support service delivery.
I hope Mr. Speaker, colleagues and advocates, that the full implementation of CARPER and the avowed objectives of fighting inequality and defending the democratic gains of people power will finally be achieved.
Thank you Mr. Speaker.
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