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Gov’t Eyes P50B for Land Reform

Farmers join call for Macapagal-Arroyo’s ouster

Success of land reform does not depend on how much the Macapagal-Arroyo administration will pay to landlords' lands, militant groups say, as they gird for nationally-coordinated day-long protests on June 10 marking the 14^th anniversary of CARP.

By Gerry Albert-Corpuz

Bulatlat.com

This month’s celebration of the 14^th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by the Macapagal-Arroyo government will be met with widespread protests by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP - Peasant Movement in the Philippines), the fisherfolk organization Pamalakaya and other militant groups.

In a joint statement over the weekend, KMP and Pamalakaya said "for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the success of her government's ‘land reform program' would depend on how much her administration would pay for lands her government would acquire from landlords and not from the merits of having a genuine land reform free from market forces and class interest of the country's landed class."

“This system is very ridiculous and highly deplorable,” both organizations said. “The government does not need a single cent to appropriate landholdings of a few landed oligarchs and aristocrats. Genuine land reform only requires political will, patriotic sense and recognition of social justice."

Recently, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) said it would need at least P50 billion (roughly, $1 billion) to enable it to acquire some 500,000 hectares of lands for CARP.

KMP national chair Rafael Mariano assailed the plan to buy lands from landowners at the expense of taxpayers and the Filipino people in general. "The Macapagal-Arroyo government has set up a national treasury fund for all landlords, whose monopoly control over vast tracts of lands would entitle them billions of pesos as premium and extra-bonanzas in case they let go their lands in possession", he said.

Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya national chair, said under the World Bank-inspired market-assisted land reform the government mainly set up the market value per hectare of lands kept in the disposal of landlords when it announced last Monday that it would need P50 billion in state funds to acquire additional 500,000 hectares for the program. "That's a whopping P 100,000 per hectare,” Hicap said. “That's sure money for landlords, but large-scale deprivation of peasants' land rights."

Hicap added: "The landlords would become a hundred thousand richer by selling even a hectare of his land. Worse, landlords could even use this WB-inspired market-assisted land reform to increase the market value of their landholdings."

DAR Secretary Hernani Braganza last week said DAR has only P4 billion to acquire 70,000 hectares of land from landlords under the voluntary offer to sell (VOS). He said another 500,000 hectares of land would be covered by the government's land reform program from 2004 to 2008.

Grandmother of all token land reforms

Earlier, KMP and Pamalakaya chided DAR's accomplishment report for 2001 saying the agrarian department failed to meet even its small target since Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (Sona) last year.

Both groups said DAR's declaration announcing a major breakthrough in land reform was a classified hearsay. DAR said it was able to distribute some 109,661 hectares of private and agricultural lands to private beneficiaries over the last year. DAR’s claim, KMP and Pamalakaya said, fell short by 90,339 hectares compared to the 200,000 hectares of land (100,000 hectares of private lands, and 100,000 hectares of government lands) targeted for distribution as President Arroyo stressed in her first SONA last year.

The groups said the Arroyo-Macapagal government could only speak of a 51 percent level performance based on the target set last year. "DAR's 2001 performance was the most dismal in recent years enough to be called the grandmother of all token land reforms in the country. For 17 years, the so-called CARP remains the landed aristocrats’ and oligarchs' weapon in preserving their control and land accumulation activities", both groups added.

DAR said CARP was able to distribute 73 percent of lands targeted for distribution. In its 2001 accomplishment report, the DAR said it has distributed around 3,166,882 hectares of land for the last decade.

"Where are the lands? The distribution only happened in GMA's ‘success stories.’ Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo should stop claiming credits for above par performance that never took place," both groups asked.

Major political statement

Peasant and fisherfolk activists from KMP and Pamalakaya are set to literally paint the town red on June 10, to strike a major political statement. There will be protests and mass actions all over the archipelago against the resurgence of landgrabbing, total war policy and rising political repression under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Both groups said at least 10,000 farmers and fisherfolk from Central and Northern Luzon regions, Southern Tagalog and Bicol provinces will trek to the main capital for a day-long protest on June 10 and call for the ouster of Macapagal-Arroyo from the presidency.

Other nationally-coordinated activities will be held in Bacolod City, Iloilo City, Cebu, Bohol, Far South and other regions in Mindanao and Visayas. "Gloria's days are numbered. We will not allow her to rule beyond 2004", the groups said. Bulatlat.com

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