Jolito Divinagracia and Ranel Enoc are among the farmers in Tamugan, Calinan district, whose parents are beneficiaries of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). But almost 20 years into the program, both their families are still having a hard time acquiring the land supposedly awarded to them.

BY GRACE S. UDDIN
Davao Today
Vol. VII, No. 43, December 2-8, 2007

DAVAO CITY – Jolito Divinagracia, 34, and Ranel Enoc, 30, are among the farmers in Tamugan, Calinan district here, whose parents are beneficiaries of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

But almost 20 years into the program, both their families are still having a hard time acquiring the land supposedly awarded to them by CARP.

“Our income is very small,” Ranel told davaotoday in a recent farmers’ picket at Rizal Park. “That is why we’re having a hard time paying for the amortization. Our income varies every month, mainly from the sale of crops and fruits we grow. We have to set a budget merely for the payment of the land.”

CARP, a government land reform program started in 1988, is supposed to distribute land to agrarian reform beneficiaries. It requires farmers’ amortization for the acquisition of lands formerly owned by private landowners.

The Department of Agrarian Reform, the government agency that implements CARP, has set guidelines on how to make the payments affordable.

It takes only up to five percent of the value of the land’s annual gross production (as established by DAR) for the first five annual amortization payment.

After five years, the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) may reduce the interest rate or the principal obligation when the scheduled annual payment exceeded 10 per cent of the annual gross production and the failure to produce is not due to the beneficiary’s fault.

This policy is supposed to lighten the farmers’ amortization payment. But the rising cost of inflation and the increase in the cost of living in recent years have been eating up a big chunk of the farmer’s income, making it hard for most of them to pay for the amortization to finally acquire the land.

From the small parcel of land planted with bananas, coconuts and other fruit-bearing trees, for instance, Jolito’s family only earn a meager P3,000 to P5,000 during harvestime, which occurs once in every three months.

“We have to put food on the table first,” Jolito said, “So, there are times when we can’t pay the amortization.”

He said his family is constantly hounded by fear that the bank would foreclose the property and confiscate their land, if they fail to pay the amortization on time.

Rodolfo T. Inson, DAR XI regional director, said Jolito’s dilemma reflects the dilemma of many agrarian reform beneficiaries, who are having a hard time paying the amortization. Some of these beneficiaries have forfeited the land.

Inson said that of the total land area distributed for land reform in the region, 60 per cent are private agricultural lands, and only 40 per cent are public ones. Which means that the government is buying more land from the private sector; and that, more farmers are paying rather than acquiring lands for free.

The peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KMP) said that the high amortization payment for lands acquired under CARP defeats the purpose of land reform, which is supposed to even out the largely unequal distribution of land and resources in the country. Most of the farmers could not afford the high amortization payment, said Celso Pojas, KMP spokesperson for Southern Mindanao.

But Inson explained that DAR has to come up with that scheme as the government is buying private agricultural lands, or lands owned by private land owners, for distribution to the farmers. In turn, farmers are made to pay amortization within the period of 30 years. Failure to pay for the amortization in three consecutive terms will make them forfeit the land, he said.

“The real essence of agrarian reform is to break the monopoly of land by the few. We learned in our Philippine history that only 10 per cent controls the landownership in this country,” Inson said.

Inson also explained that government needed funds to spend for the increased productivity of farmers.

“How can the government recover the money it spends for buying the land from private landowners? Awarding the land for free is a good idea but then, people tend to value more what they buy than what is freely given to them,” he explained.

Only the public agricultural lands, owned by the government, are distributed for free, Inson said.

Among the public lands subjected to land reform, are government resettlement areas, lands administered by National Livelihood Program and a portion of the Davao Penal Colony (Dapecol).

He said there are farmers who can even afford to sell their lands after they bought it.

But Pojas said government support services for farmers are indeed lacking. “Not everyone is reached by government support services,” he said.

DAR has set up agrarian reform communities (ARCs) as the convergence points of government’s support services such as infrastructure like farm -to- market roads, rural water system’ agricultural developments like livestock, seedlings as well as trainings for the farmers. In Southern Mindanao, DAR has listed 103 ARC’s in 371 barangays in 54 different towns, where government has been implementing projects, tapping either its own fund or foreign sources. Some of the agrarian reform beneficiaries have also opted for a “leaseback” arrangement with former landowners or a new corporation, which ironically allows them to work as hired workers and tillers while leasing back to their former landowners the land supposedly awarded to them.

KMP hits CARP for its failure to cover vast landholdings of big landlords in Davao like the Floreindo’s, Lagdameo’s, Ayala’s and the Dizon’s under the government’s land reform program. Inson said these landholdings are still target for distribution; just like the landholdings of the Sarmiento’s in Monkayo, the Ayala’s in Hagonoy, Sta. Maria and Malita towns of Davao del Sur.

He said the landholdings of Rabat and Ricamora also in Davao Oriental are also in the process for distribution. A portion of the Floirendo-owned Tadeco banana plantation is also covered by CARP. Others still have pending cases and being contested under CARP.

CARP Extension?

As CARP approaches its deadline next year, a great debate is taking place in Congress for its extension.

Partylist Rep. Rafael Mariano pronounced it as a total failure and said his group has filed a bill in Congress that will distribute lands to farmers at no cost at all. He said such a bill will hopefully present an alternative to the farmers’ continued landlessness after 19 years of CARP.

DAR claimed to have distributed 209,938 hectares of the 227, 065 hectares targeted for distribution in Southern Mindanao as of September this year. DAR claimed to have distributed 64 per cent of its target for this year.

But Mariano described the DAR report as inaccurate, unreliable, questionable and bloated.

He said that the 3.8 million hectares that DAR claimed to have distributed to more than 2.1 farmers as of June this year, are “problematic” and did not include lands that were taken away from farmer beneficiaries for one reason or another. “Practically, the farmer has no guarantee that the land awarded to him will not be taken away; and that land has always been under threat of confiscation,” he said.

“DAR is saying that they have already solved several land- related cases, but are these solved cases final and executory or are just solved only in the administrative level?” Mariano asked.

He said that after almost 20 years of CARP, a huge portion of the so-called big agricultural lands remains outside the coverage of CARP.

He added that the Hacienda Luisita owned by the Cojuangco’s was put under CARP but up to this time there is no physical distribution to the many peasants in Tarlac.

The Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill is meant to totally distribute lands to the peasants to “free the farmers from all forms of exploitation,” Mariano said, although, he admitted that such a bill may face a hard sailing in Congress, where big landlords dominate.

“Knowing the ‘class character’ of the landlords who are majority in the congress,” Mariano said, “We don’t expect this bill to be popular,” he said. He said that breaking the land monopoly which is the source of the political and economic power of the landlords may still take a long time to materialize.

But Inson said DAR is pining for the extension of CARP because there are still lands pending for distribution. He also said that DAR will need additional budget to implement the law.

“The Agrarian Reform Program is a law and remains to be law, but if the congress will not give the budget, how can they expect the employees to come back and continue their work?” he asked.

Pojas said the CARP extension goes beyond land distributions and the interests of multinational and transnational companies are the ones given consideration by the government. In the Southern Mindanao region alone, the companies are eyeing 5,000 to 5, 500 hectares of land for new banana plantation, on top of the existing 45,000 hectares, where banana plantations operate in the region.

“The proposal to extend CARP for another ten years is illogical when the actual results of its implementation for the past 19 years only show the paltry, if not token, land distribution from small to medium landowners. At any rate CARP is useless and no amount of time can prove its benefit for the Filipino farmers,” Pojas ends. Davao Today / Posted by Bulatlat