1. What is CARP? What is CARPER?
Many agencies are involved in the
CARP stands for the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program, a Agrarian Reform (DAR), and the
government initiative that aims to grant
landless farmers and farmworkers
ownership of agricultural lands. It was
signed into law by President Corazon C.
Aquino on June 10, 1988, and was
scheduled to have been completed in
1998. On the year of its deadline,
Congress enacted a law (Republic Act
No. 8532) appropriating additional funds
for the program and extending the
automatic appropriation of ill-gotten
wealth recovered by the Presidential
Commission on Good Governance
(PCGG) for CARP until 2008.
CARPER, or the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program Extension
with Reforms, is the amendatory law
that extends yet again the deadline of
distributing agricultural lands to farmers
for five years. It also amends other
provisions stated in CARP. CARPER
was signed into law on August 7, 2009.
2. Who are the beneficiaries of
CARP?
Landless farmers, including agricultural
lessees, tenants, as well as regular,
seasonal and other farmworkers. The
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
identifies and screens potential
beneficiaries and validates their
qualifications. For example, to qualify,
you must be at least 15 years old, be a
resident of the barangay where the land
holding is located, and own no more
than 3 hectares of agricultural land.
3. What are the government offices
involved in the program?
implementation of CARP. The lead
agencies are the Department of
Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR). They are in charge
of the identification and distribution of
covered land, and is commonly
refererred to as CARPable land.
4. How much land is subject to land
reform?
An estimated 7.8 million hectares of
land is covered by CARP.
5. How much land has been acquired
and distributed so far?
As of December 31, 2013, the
government has acquired and
distributed 6.9 million hectares of land,
equivalent to 88% of the total land
subject to CARP.
6. How much land was distributed to
beneficiaries under this
administration?
From July 2010 to December 2013, the
administration has distributed a total of
751,514 hectares, or 45% of the total
landholdings to be distributed to the
farmer beneficiaries left under this
administration.
From this, DAR has distributed 412,782
hectares and DENR has already
distributed 338,732 hectares.
7. How much land does the
government still need to acquire for
distribution from 2014 to 2016?
DAR still needs to acquire 771,795
hectares, while the DENR still needs to
acquire 134,857 hectaresa total of
906,652 hectares.
8. How will the government acquire
the landholdings?
There are different modes of acquiring
and distributing public and private
agricultural lands. For private lands
under compulsory acquisition, the DAR
will issue Notices of Coverage to the
original owners of the landholdings.
Notices of Coverage will be issued to
most of the landholdings by June 30,
2014.
9. What is a notice of coverage?
A Notice of Coverage (NOC) is a letter
informing a landowner that his/her land
is covered by CARP, and is subject to
acquisition and distribution to
beneficiaries. It likewise informs the
landowner of his/her rights under the
law, including the right to retain 5
hectares.
10. After the period of time allotted
for CARPER by law is passed
(August 7, 2009 to June 30, 2014),
how will the remaining landholdings,
which are subject to compulsory
acquisition, be distributed to the
beneficiaries?
As long as Notices of Coverage are
issued on or before June 30, 2014, land
distribution to beneficiaries shall
continue until completion, according to
Section 30 of CARPER (R.A. No. 9700).
Meaning, even after CARPERs
deadline, the law itself mandates the
concerned agencies to finish distributing
lands to the beneficiaries up to the very
last hectare. This assures to the farmers
that the process for receiving their land
will continue (e.g., beneficiary
identification, survey, generation, and
registration of land titles to
beneficiaries).
11. How does DAR intend to deal with
the remaining landholdings (771,795
hectares) to be distributed?
DAR projects that it will be distributing
187,686 hectares in 2014; 198,631
hectares in 2015; and 385,478 hectares
in 2016.
Of the remaining CARPable
landholdings to be distributed, 551,275
hectares are considered workable, while
220,520 hectares are tagged as
problematic. Solutions for problematic
landholdings will be worked out.
12. What were the challenges
encountered in the course of
acquiring and distributing private
lands?
There were numerous problems in
implementing the land reform program:
In some cases, technical descriptions in
the land titles (which determine the
boundaries of the land) were found to be
erroneous and had to be corrected.
Some titles were destroyed, and
therefore, had to be reissued by
undergoing a court process, similar to
filing a case. Potential beneficiaries
argued among themselves on who
should or should not be qualified as
beneficiaries; these disputes had to be
mediated or resolved by the
government. In other cases, landowners
may petition that their lands be
exempted or excluded from CARP
coverage, and some of these petitions
have gone up to the Supreme Court.

Smaller parcels of land (5 hectares to 10

hectares) were only processed in the
last year of implementation of CARPER
(July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014). Past
efforts focused on bigger parcels of
land, which involved more paperwork to
process. Now that efforts are focused on
smaller but more numerous cuts of land,
there are more claim folders to process
and distribute.

From the Presidential

Communications Development and
Strategic Planning Office and the
Department of Agrarian Reform