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Six archbishops and 23 bishops, including Cardinal Archbishops
Gaudencio Rosales of Manila and Ricardo Vidal of Cebu and President
of CBCP Archbishop Angel Lagdameo of Jaro, have written a joint
letter to Rep. Elias Bubut (Apayao), the chairman of the House’s
committee on agrarian reform. The letter appeals to Congress to
urgently pass “a bill to extend the life of the Comprehensive
Agrarian Program and to institute progressive reforms that would
truly benefit our poor farmers who remain landless.” If not
extended, CARP will expire this June.
The country has had 20 years of CARP (a creation
of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law or CARL passed in 1988).
Yet, the bishops say, “[rural and urban] poverty is still very
much with us.” But they do not blame CARP. They blame the failure
of governments “to fully and properly implement” the program.
The bishops are specifically concerned with the
need to extend the funding for CARP and to reform it so
implementation of the land reform program becomes more just and
effective.
They view the issue holistically. They see
agrarian reform as a vital part of the entire task of achieving
rural development. They see the large role that rural development
plays in overall Philippine development. That is why the bishops
“fervently pray that agrarian reform, through a reformed CARP, be
placed at the center of our country’s agricultural development,
transformation and competitiveness.”
The 29 bishop signatories are experts in rural
development matters. Archbishop Rosales for one knows all about land
issues in his native Batangas, in Mindoro and Marinduque—even
Bukidnon in Mindanao—and other areas that he has been the shepherd
of his Catholic flock. That is why he was a mover in finding a
win-win solution to the Sumilao farmers’ conflict with the San
Miguel Corporation.
These bishops have lived and led the Church in
agricultural regions and communities. Some of them were already
prelates when the CBCP, in 1967, wrote the “Pastoral Letter of the
Philippine Hierarchy on Social Action and Rural Development.” That
letter, except for minor adjustments in data, is still virtually one
hundred percent valid today, when the government’s
employment-generation thrust treats agriculture as the unwanted
child and lavishes attention and investments in call centers and
other voice business-process outsourcing (BPO) activities.
Says the CBCP’s 1967 pastoral letter: “The
important role of farmers and fishermen must be realized. Seventy
percent of our population depends on agriculture for livelihood, and
eighty percent of our country’s total annual export earnings comes
from the primary products of agriculture. Clearly, farmers are the
backbone of the economy. And yet they are the most neglected sector
of Philippine life.”
Today our labor force is made up of 35 percent
agricultural, 15 percent industrial and 50 percent service workers.
With the millions who are unemployed, underemployed and “not in
the labor force” in the the rural areas, working and unemployed
farm people make up at least 50 percent of the labor force.
Successive national administrations of the
country have made the mistake of downgrading rural development. The
Arroyo administration seriously began to do more for the
agricultural sector two years ago—perhaps prodded by the so-called
Joc-joc Bolante fertilizer scam scandal.
The newly exploded rice-shortage crisis now
makes agricultural development a top priority. We hope recent
statements made by the Agriculture secretary are followed through
with concrete action.
Spur to industrialization
The bishops also urge that 1.3 million
hectares—most of these in hacienda estates—be legally declared
as agarian-reform-covered lands and then distributed, under reformed
rules, to the landless farmers. These lands have remained
undistributed, the bishops say in their letter, because these large
haciendas’ owners “have been resisting CARP since its
inception” twenty years ago.
“There is no doubt that the manner in which
the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has been implementing the
program leaves much to be desired. Add to this the perception of
corrupt practices in the department, especially in many decisions on
exemptions and conversions that farmers have questioned and remain
unresolved,” the bishop also say.
They are asking Congress to heed expert
recommendations to close “loopholes in the law and repair the
inadequacy and inefficiency of its implementation.”
The bishops list six imperative recommendations
that must be in the reformed CARP:
1) Mandate for direct and physical distribution
of all agricultural lands, as opposed to non-redistributive schemes;
2) Address policy and implementation problems
that are obstacles to the completion of the program;
3) The establishment of the needed
implementation structure for CARP’s completion;
4) The requisite appropriations of at least P50
billion;
5) Ensure strengthened credit and support
services to farmer beneficiaries; and
6) Congressional monitoring and oversight with
major CARP stakeholders of CARP implementation and DAR’s
performance.
The bishops are right. Carrying out CARP
properly—distributing land to the tillers and giving them support
will solve a great part of the country’s massive poverty problem
and the approaching food crisis. It will promote the wellbeing of
the people in agricultural areas and lead to general rural
development.
Rural development in turn advances overall
national socio-economic growth. Dynamic agricultural progress will
stir new life into basic industries servicing the agricultural
sector. This will then serve to spur Philippine industrialization.
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