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By Efren L. Danao, Senior
Reporter
Senate President Manuel Villar
said Friday that the executive department must submit the
information being required by senators and congressmen if it wants a
special session to tackle the measure extending the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by five more years.
Villar said there is no problem
in holding a special session if majority of the senators want it.
Earlier, he said the CARP extension could be tackled in the Second
Regular Session, and that there is no urgency in its passage because
it is already fully funded for the year. CARP is due to expire next
week.
There have been calls for a
special session after it became apparent that Congress could not
pass a consolidated CARP bill with just two session days left before
it adjourns its First Regular Session on June 11. Speaker Prospero
Nograles Jr., had declared that the House would pass its own
version.
Senate still waiting for
information requested
Sen. Gregorio Honasan, chairman
of the Senate Committee on Agrarian Reform, said that he could not
submit a committee report until the Department of Agrarian Reform
and other agencies provide his committee with the reports requested
by Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Joker Arroyo, Rodolfo Biazon and
Aquilino Pimentel Jr.
Enrile wanted the DAR to provide
the Senate with a full report on the recipients of the CARP since
its implementation in 1988, and whether productivity increased or
diminished on the CARP distributed lands.
“I want to be proven wrong that
the productivity of CARP lands had gone down,” he said.
Enrile also called for a full
accounting of the vast tracts of land that were acquired and
distributed under the CARP and if these lands were appropriate for
food production.
Arroyo wanted the Agrarian
department to provide the Senate with an impact study on how CARP
had affected the lives of farmers. He cited the admission by the
Department of Agriculture that CARP had failed to uplift the lives
of farmers with the inadequacy of support services.
President Arroyo had certified
the CARP bill as urgent, but Senator Arroyo said this would not
change at all the concerns of senators about the measure.
Pimentel wanted a full accounting
of the CARP funds since its enactment in 1988. He said he favors a
special session to give the Arroyo administration and the Agrarian
department additional time to explain how the billions of pesos in
public funds were spent on the program.
He said the special session would
also enable the Senate to inquire anew into the fertilizer fund scam
in view of the impending deportation of former Agriculture
Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc-Joc” Bolante from the United States.
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