What is CARPER about?
Actually, the original law enacted in 1988 was CARP or Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. It aspired to advance social justice by equitably distributing the country’s disproportionately owned agricultural lands. This would have reduced rural poverty which makes up 70% of the Philippine’s poor population. Also, it aimed to make our agriculture efficient by ensuring all agricultural land n the country is tilled and farmed. By minimizing inequality and maximizing agricultural productivity, which by the way is our economy’s foundation, economic and social progress would have come a lot sooner in history.
CARP obliges landowners to sell all their arable land possessions exceeding 5 hectares. They may also keep 3 hectares of land for each of their children who are personally tilling or managing the land. If they make it easier for the government and volunteer to sell their lands, they will even receive incentives. The landowners may sell their land to the government, which the government will sell to the farmers and farm workers. Within 30 years and with 6% annual interest rate, the payment for newly acquired land should be completed by the farmers. The landowners may also opt to transact directly with their tenants who till and farm the land. State-owned agricultural lands are also subject to CARP.
The law states that CARP should be fully implemented in 10 years, meaning it should have been completed in 1998. However, the Department of Agrarian Reform failed to beat this deadline, so the program and budget were extended for 10 more years. By the end of 2008, 80% of the privately owned agricultural lands have not yet been distributed. This is why and how CARPER came to be. CARP Extension with Reforms (CARPER) clamors for continuing budget for the program, and reforms to repair the loopholes in CARP which have weakened it for the last 20 years.
Why has CARP not yet been fully implemented?
There can be a thousand reasons to delay CARP’s fulfillment, all boiling down to frail political will.
For the past 2 decades, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has prioritized distributing state-owned agricultural lands instead of privately owned ones – even though the law specifies that the latter should be distributed first. Lots of exceptions have been given to powerful landlords to spare their lands from the program. Titles already won by would-be beneficiaries are canceled and decisions favoring them are reversed. Illegal conversions of agricultural lands to non-agricultural purposes are allowed. Huge parts of agricultural lands are sold and distributed to ‘ghost’ buyers. Farmers and land workers are fooled to sign agreements making them
stockholders of the land, which technically disqualifies them from owning the lands directly. Many farmers now have Certificates of Land Ownership Award in their hands. Unfortunately, landlords are armed with guns, practically paralyzing the farmers’ rights. Some farmer beneficiaries have been shot for tilling the lands they rightfully own.
A program can be incredibly to complete it is done half-heartedly. The saying hits it: “Pag ayaw, may dahilan.”
So what happens if CARPER is not passed?
Well, another generation of rural population will again inherit the enslaving fate of poverty. This will happen despite the farmers’ lawful claim to the lands and despite the cause that has consumed their energies all their lives. It has been a cycle and if it is not cut now, who knows when it will end? Or if it ever will.
Unfortunately for us too, this mishap leads to a butterfly effect. Bigger population of the poor stands for an underdeveloped economy. High disproportion of ownership of resources logically reduces national productivity. Imagine an agricultural country occasionally experiencing rice shortages. We are continuously left behind by our industrialized neighbors such as Japan and Taiwan. Cost of living rises as stomachs growl louder. We export our family members instead of selling our crops abroad. Blatant breach of the law further affirms the death of democracy. Sounds like the absence of CAPRER can devastate the country? It has been happening.
What’s its status?
CARP has so far distributed 7.2million hectares of agricultural land to the farmers. It has lifted the lives of 4.5 million Filipinos from intolerable poverty. CARPER, on the other hand, pushes to extend what CARP has done and to distribute the remaining 1.3 million hectares of privately owned lands to the farmers who make them productive.
This move has been brought to Congress and the Senate for some time now and has been ignored until the last 2 days of legislative sessions in 2008. When the legislators gave some attention to CARPER’s propositions at last, they came up with an ingenious way of killing it. The Congress and the Senate signed a joint resolution extending CARP but without compulsory acquisition. It means that the program may go on but landowners may or may not sell their lands. It’s the landowners’ call. For whom is the program again?
This joint resolution has just plucked CARPER’s fangs. It has trimmed and buffed its claws and has taken away the heart of real agrarian reform. Meanwhile, landless farmers walk miles to protest and hold weeks of hunger strikes to be heard.
The pseudo-CARPER is effective until 2009. President Arroyo and the lawmakers have until then to redeem their purpose as representatives of the people. The farms can still hop and fight for justice. We can still do our part in rewriting our nation’s history of poverty and injustice. Speak up, stand up, and show the government that we are fools no more. Let us push for CARPER. Now.
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Photos courtesy of Pakisama and Mindanaokini. FAQ sourced from CARPER NOW! For more information email them here.
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