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By Ernesto M. Hinojas Sr., Special To The
Manila Times
Editor’s note: In part one, the author
argued that CARP is a failure and warned lawmakers not to pass a law
extending its life without addressing all major problems.
Last of two parts
Before the operational force of CARL
(Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law or Republic Act 6657) had expired
in 1998, the Tenth Congress augmented the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program (CARP) source of funding for another 10 years by
amending Section 63 of the law by passing Republic Act 8532.
Republic Act 8532 was a consolidation of Senate
Bill 2170 and House Bill 4808.
The claim of the Agrarian Reform department that
Republic Act 8532 has extended the validity of coverage of CARP for
another 10 years is now under intense questioning by landowners.
There is nothing in Republic Act 8532 to validate the claim of the
Department of Agrarian Reform that sections 5 and 7 of Republic Act
6657 were extended up to 2008. If there was such amendment, it
should have been explicitly stated in Republic Act 8532.
Note the legislative intent of that law.
In essence, Congress introduced no other
amendment, except that of Section 63 of Republic Act 6657. It is,
therefore, very clear that sections 5 and 7 of the Republic Act 6657
were not amended.
In short, the passage of Republic Act 8532 was
intended to augment the source of funding of CARP under Republic Act
6657 that was started by the Department of A
grarian Reform in 1988.
There is no provision in Republic Act 8532
specifying that the department could continue the acquisition and
distribution processes of the agricultural lands that were not
covered by CARP in 1988 up to 1998. Section 5 of CARL states:
“Schedule of Implementation: The distribution of all lands covered
by this Act shall be implemented immediately and completed within 10
years from the effectivity thereof.”
In addition, the schedules of acquisition and
distribution of agricultural lands covered by CARP are likewise
provided under Section 7 of CARL. Even with the funding provided for
in Republic Act 8532, the Agrarian Reform department is no longer
allowed by any law to continue acquiring and distributing land.
Yet, the department continues to illegally cover
more private agricultural lands despite the fact that the time set
by law for these acts to be completed has lapsed.
Productivity decline
CARP has spent hundreds of billions of pesos.
But to date, the complete truth about the Department of Agrarian
Reform’s performance is kept from public scrutiny.
Despite the billions spent in the past 19 years,
CARP is considered a total failure.
Only a small percentage of these funds went to
the agrarian support services where most funds should go to support
microeconomic projects and consequently improve the standard of
living in the agrarian reform communities. CARP failed to sustain
rural development, thus failing to spur economic growth in those
communities.
The Agrarian Reform department and the German
Foundation for International Cooperation, known as GTZ, conducted a
joint study in 2006. According to the joint study, farmlands that
used to be devoted to rice production are contributing less to the
national food basket. The yield today of 2.5 tons per hectare in the
Philippines is the lowest in Asia. The main reason can be traced to
an agrarian reform program started 36 years ago— well-intentioned
but poorly executed, and riddled with inefficiencies that remain
unaddressed.
According to the study, investments in
Philippine agriculture are the lowest in Asean (Association of
Southeast Asian Nations), which has 10 members. While farmers in the
rest of Asia are modernizing their methods and improving their
yields, Filipino farmers have gone back to where we were 200 years
ago.
The study showed that the Philippines has 8.5
million hectares of arable land. To date, the Agrarian Reform
department and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
have distributed 6.5 million hectares to 4 million
farmer-beneficiaries. About half of this area is devoted to rice and
corn, the first to go under Presidential Decree 27. More of these
lands were distributed later under Republic Act 6657, and eventually
grain productivity took a dive.
In the 1960s, the Philippine irrigation system
was hailed by the World Bank as one of the best in the world, yet by
2001, it had deteriorated because of corruption and lack of
maintenance budget.
The Philippines is number 31 on the list of
failed agrarian reform programs in the world. Actually, only three
countries succeeded: Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
The point is that the deterioration of
agriculture in this country accelerated after the enactment of CARL
and its institution of CARP.
Former Negros Occidental Governor Joseph Marañon
has commissioned a study to determine whether land reform has indeed
uplifted the lives of beneficiaries in the province and if they are
still tilling the land.
The findings reveal that more than half of the
farmer-beneficiaries of the CARP have either leased or sold the
lands awarded to them by the Agrarian Reform department, which is of
course contrary to law.
Marañon said, “The CARP has so far disrupted
the productivity of the land and the lives of most of its
beneficiaries have not improved.”
Defects in CARL
Republic Act 6657 or CARL has so many defects.
Some of the major amendments that Congress can
make on it can come from Supreme Court decisions on agrarian reform
cases over the years.
Among these are Roxas & Co. Inc. v. Court of
Appeals, Land Bank of the Philippines v. Court of Appeals, Yap, et
al. and Small Landowners v. Secretary of Agrarian Reform. The issue
is these cases pertain to the equitable application of social
justice and just compensation.
The above citations are just few of the cases
where the Supreme Court has rendered its landmark decisions. Such
decisions could serve as the basis for further introduction of
amendments in the proposed new agrarian reform law.
We could therefore learn from the lessons of the
past, hence, it is high time to plug-in the loopholes of the old
agrarian law before we pass a new one.
There is no need to do it in haste, considering
the horrendous past of the agrarian reform program.
Ernesto Hinojas Sr., himself a landowner, is a
columnist for Panay News, a daily newspaper based in Iloilo City.
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