ANTI-CARP groups start THREE DAY CAMP OUT IN CONGRESS

joint with Amihan, National Federation of Peasant Women

“Let’s bury CARP, and go GARB”, militant farmers dare solons

Anti-CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) groups led by the militant farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and peasant women federation Amihan on Monday challenged lawmakers in both Houses of Congress to bury the proposed five-year extension of the 20-year old agrarian reform program and instead pass the controversial Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) or House Bill 3059.

“Why talk of a bogus agrarian reform program like CARP if we can get real and pursue a thoroughgoing land reform program with GARB for the sake and in the name of millions of landless farmers all over the country. It is time to make change. Let’s bury CARP and go GARB,” the KMP and Amihan said in a join press statement.

KMP secretary general Danilo Ramos and Amihan spokesperson Zenaida Soriano are leading hundreds of farmers in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog provinces in the three-day camp out from Dec. 15-17 in Batasan Complex dubbed as Kampuhang Magsasaka Laban sa CARP at CARP extension at Para sa Pagsasabatas ng GARB o HB 3059.

Some 100 farmers from San Jose del Monte, Bulacan and Montalban, Rizal will begin their three-day camp-out against CARP extension and for the passage of GARB or HB 3059. Organizers said 200 more farmers and fisherfolk from Southern Tagalog will join the camp-out tomorrow at the main gate of the House of Representative.

On Dec.17, 500 members of the umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) will march from St. Peter’s Church in Commonwealth Avenue and will join Amihan and KMP’ s camp-out and protest against CARP extension outside the Batasan Complex in Quezon City.

“CARP extension with or without reforms are the same banana. We cannot give our support to this kind of rotten agrarian reform escapade. We need an agrarian reform program that will decisively address the more than 400 hundred year old problem of landlessness in the country, and the extension of CARP is not the solution, but part of the major problem,” KMP’s Ramos asserted.

Soriano’s Amihan was equally combative as Ramos, as she warned anew the 67 farmer beneficiaries of the Arroyo-owned 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Negros Occidental not to trust CARP extension as the ultimate solution to their current agrarian dispute with the family of First Gentleman Atty. Jose Miguel Arroyo.

“We support the farmers of Hacienda Bacan as far as their land dispute with the Arroyo family. The worked hard for the land and they deserve to collectively owned the hacienda of the Arroyos in Negros Occidental. However, the Arroyos will still be able to exploit and maneuver this fatally flawed and pro-landlord agrarian reform extension law to protect to keep the 157-hectare estate. That is bound to happen under the CARP extension law, “she stressed.

The Hacienda Bacan farmers identified with the moderate group Task Force Mapalad (TFM) had accused the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) of dragging its feet in the distribution of land parcels in the 157-hectare hacienda to agrarian reform beneficiaries.

KMP and Amihan said Malacañang in conspiracy with agrarian reform secretary Nasser Pangandaman and officials of the Land Registration Authority (LRA) and the Registry of Deeds in Bacolod City are keen to keep the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacani owned by the family of First Gentleman Atty. Jose Miguel Arroyo, and such agenda is guaranteed in the proposed CARP extension law in Congress.

Citing the recent study made by the Sentro Para Sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Sentra), both farmers groups said as of September 2007, DAR reported that 5,049 emancipation patents and 103,392 certificates of land ownership awards (CLOAs) were already cancelled involving 204,579 hectares under the agrarian reform program.

The figures he cited excluded pending cases of cancellation of EPs and CLOAs before the DAR. Both group said, the agrarian reform agency, up to now, failed to determine how many land titles were cancelled or revoked by DAR.

Based on reports obtained from DAR, the agrarian department cancelled over 2,000 EPs and CLOAs in the middle of 2004 covering 380,000 hectares of land, further suggesting that DAR is yearly engaged in manipulation of reports to cover up the left-and-right land reform reversals under CARP.

The groups showed that landlords all over the country profited immensely from the implementation of CARP. It said from 1972 to 2005, the Land Bank of the Philippines compensation to 83,203 landowners for 1,348, 758 hectares has already reached P 41.6 billion in cash and bonds, or an average of P 500,463 per landlord. In 2005, P 4.6 billion went to compensation of landlords.

KMP and Amihan, together with the left-leaning fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and the agricultural labor group Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) are supporting the passage of the controversial GARB or HB 3059 authored by the late Anakpawis party list Rep. Crispin Beltran and co-authored by his successor Anakpawis party list Rep. Rafael Mariano, Bayan Muna party list Reps. Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiño and Gabriela party list lawmakers Rep. Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan.

“Under GARB, all agricultural lands will be covered and distributed to landless, land lacking and willing to-till farmers across-the-nation for free with strong support services and guarantees that the lands would not revert back to landlords, unlike in CARP extension the farmers would continue to amortize or pay the government for the lands awarded to them,” they said. #

FOR REFERENCE:
DANILO RAMOS, KMP Secretary-General
ROY MORILLA, Kampuhang Magsasaka Coordinator (+63-905-421-73-05)