Although CARP ’s definition of agro-industrial lands warrants the existence of support facilities, such as housing projects and schools, what SMFI established was a piggery.

A decade after the conversion, the supposed agro-industrial land is still empty of the purported developments, initiating the Sumilao farmers’ march from Bukidnon to Malacañang.

Mistaken demands

Although Gloria Arroyo has already given a revocation order, converting the ancestral land back to agricultural, the Sumilao farmers still demand the immediate redistribution of the land under CARP. The farmers also call for the “extension of the agrarian reform program” as the CARP will expire on June. In an interview, Sumilao farmer Rene Peñas describes the CARP as “perfect” but at the same breath admits that the program’s provision on conversion and reclassification has allowed landowners to retain ownership of lands that were supposedly theirs.

In Congress, Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros has filed HB 1257, which seeks to “extend and reform the program.” Although Hontiveros declares that the Sumilao farmers’ plight is a manifestation of CARP’s failure, she adds that “Congress is duty-bound to extend and overhaul the existing agrarian reform program.”

KMP Chairperson Rafael Mariano, however, disagrees. He points that the CARP has already been extended in 1998, yet “majority of the peasants remain landless,” keeping seven out of every ten Filipino peasants landless. To date, over 65 percent of agricultural lands are not covered by CARP. Notwithstanding CARP’s goal of land redistribution, full land ownership has continued to decline, owing to the intensification of tenancy and lease arrangements.

Thus, Mariano declares, “ Extending the CARP again will not solve the nation’s land problems.”

Moreover, Sonny Africa, research head of IBON, states that “CARP cannot address peasant poverty and landlessness because it was never meant to.” He recalls how HB 400 was amended by Congress to cater to landlord interests, deliberately adding provisions to prevent genuine agrarian reform. For instance, Aquino used CARP’s stock distribution option to avert the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita (HL) by distributing stocks to peasant beneficiaries instead of awarding them the land. Thus, even as HL farmers were reclassified from farm laborers to “stockholders,” they took home only P9.50 per day ($0.23 at an exchange rate of $1=P40.80).

Meanwhile, Rural Development Fellow Saturnino M. Borras Jr. states that CARP was patterned after the “market-led agrarian reform, ” an approach supported by the World Bank based on the “willing seller, willing-buyer principle” wherein peasant beneficiaries pay the landlords an amount equal to the market value of the land. In this system, peasants are burdened by amortization fees, burying them further in debt. Thus, Bayan Muna Party List Rep. Satur Ocampo points that even if DAR issues a certificate of land ownership award to the Sumilao farmers, they must first pay an estimate of P2.4 B ($58,823,529) to SMFI in 30 years at six percent interest before they could fully regain their land. Thus, Mariano concludes that efforts to amend CARP are futile simply because of the “sheer number of loopholes in the program.”

In a country where landed classes remain entrenched, where economic and political power feed upon the feudal relations in society, it will take much more than legislation to eradicate the eschewed system of landownership. For true agrarian reform can only be ensured through the persistent struggle of peasants and other allied sectors, unimpeded by deceptive programs that posture as pro-peasant in nature. Philippine Collegian/Posted by (Bulatlat.com)

Reference: Tadem, E. (2002). Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled
Promise. The Political Economy Of Mindanao: An Overview. New
day Publishers, QC.

 Save as PDF