Agrarian Reform in 2009: More of the Same Failed Program

PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 1, 2010

MANILA Addressing the just demand of the majority of the population should form part of the policy agenda of any pro-people government. In an agrarian country such as the Philippines where majority of the people are peasants, land reform is a must if the government seeks to respond to the needs of the people, and achieve peace and development for the nation. Thus, administrations since the 1950s had their own versions of agrarian-reform programs. These programs, however, have proven to be a failure as seven out of 10 farmers remain landless today.

The most recent of these programs is the Aquino regimes Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Enacted on June 10, 1988, Republic Act 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was supposed to be implemented for 10 years. Falling short of its targets, the Agrarian Reform Law was extended by the Ramos administration for another 10 years. It expired for the second time in June 2008.

In June this year, the landlord-dominated House of Representatives, led by the four relatives of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (her two sons, her brother-in-law and sister-in-law), adopted House Resolution 4077, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). Only 13 voted no and two abstained. Shorty thereafter, the bicameral conference committee voted for the extension of the CARP for another five years.

In August, Arroyo signed the CARPER, a consolidation of House Bill No. 4077 and Senate Bill No. 2666, effectively extending the CARP from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2014.

Did the landlord-legislators, including the Arroyos and the president herself her husband Miguel Mike Arroyo owns the 157-hectare Hacienda Bacan in Isabela town, Negros Occidental province go against their interests in extending the CARP? More importantly, will the CARPER finally resolve the centuries-old problem of landlessness afflicting the peasantry?

Basic Flaw

A genuine agrarian-reform program should result in the free distribution of land to the tillers. After all, land, which should be universally available to all, was merely grabbed and titled by landlords who were close to the Spanish and then the American colonial authorities. Second, these landlords have already profited immensely through the labor of generations of peasants. Herein lies the basic flaw of CARP and CARPER, which provided compensation to the landlords, thereby negating the aforementioned historical truths. Compensation limited the capacity of the government to distribute land and gave the landlords the power to dictate the price of compensation and eventually take back the land from peasants who are unable to pay the amortization because of the backwardness of agricultural production in the country.

A study by the Sentro Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo (Center for Genuine Agrarian Reform) revealed that landlords whose lands were covered for implementation of CARP profited immensely from their sale.

Citing data from the Land Bank of the Philippines, the study revealed that from 1972 to 2005, the compensation to 83,203 landowners for 1,348,758 hectares reached P41.6 billion ($899,653,979 at the current exchange rate of $1=P46.24) in cash and bonds, or an average of P500,463 per landlord ($10,823). In 2005, P4.6 billion ($99,480,968) was spent to compensate landlords.

The CARPER provides for a P150-billion ($3,243,944,636) outlay for the acquisition and distribution of 1.6 million hectares of agricultural lands as well as support services for 1.2 million farmerbeneficiaries.

In September, Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman said lack of funds could affect the departments land acquisitions target. He complained that the Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) approved only P19.7 billion ($426,038,062) for the operations of the department and the implementation of CARPER.

No Real Redistribution of Land

Pangandaman said their task is to cover one million hectares in the next five years. By 2010, the department should be able to distribute 200,000 hectares of land.

The CARPER also mandates that private agricultural lands the type that the Arroyos and the Cojuangcos own can only be distributed if the original CARP managed to distribute 90 percent of its target. But CARP, despite the two decades of its implementation, only distributed less than half of its target.

Lands covered by CARPER will be acquired and distributed in three phases.

Phase One will cover rice and corn lands, all idle lands or abandoned lands, all private lands voluntarily offered by the owners for agrarian reform, all lands foreclosed by government financial institutions, all lands acquired by the Presidential Commission on Good Government, and all other lands owned by government devoted to or suitable for agriculture.

Phase Two will cover all alienable and disposable public agricultural lands; all arable public agricultural lands under agro-forest, pasture and agricultural leases already cultivated and planted to crops in accordance with Section 6 Article XIII of the Constitution; all public agricultural lands that are to be opened for new development and resettlement; all private agricultural lands in excess of 50 hectares.

Phase Three will cover all other private agricultural lands starting with large landholdings and then medium and small landholdings.

Anakpawis Representative Rafael Mariano told Bulatlat in an interview that the original CARP failed despite running for more than two decades to achieve even half of its target, let alone 90 percent of all land supposed to be covered by the program. When will that happen? Mariano asked. In effect, no private agricultural lands will ever be distributed under the CARP extension.

CARP managed to cover only 43 percent of all agricultural lands in the country in those 20 years, according to Mariano, who is also chairman of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Philippine Peasant Movement).

Based on the 2008 accomplishment report of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), which covers the implementation of two agrarian reform programs Presidential Decree No. 27 of former

President Marcos and the CARP 3. 8 million hectares of land have been acquired and distributed by the DAR and another 2.4 million hectares distributed through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Of these, however, government data show that only 1.9 million hectares of private agricultural lands have been distributed since 1988. And KMP said that 82 percent of these private agricultural lands still have pending cases and that no actual or physical land distribution had taken place.

Back to the Landlords

Under CARP, the Sumilao farmers, for example, would have to pay San Miguel Food Incorporated (SMFI) at least P2.4 billion ($51,903,114) for what the latter invested in the 144-hectare land.

The CARPs Chapter VI Section 17 stipulates:

Determination of Just Compensation. In determining just compensation, the cost of acquisition of the land, the current value of like properties, its nature, actual use and income, the sworn valuation by the owner, the tax declarations, and the assessment made by government assessors, shall be considered. The social and economic benefits contributed by the farmers and the farm workers and by government to the property as well as the non-payment of taxes or loans secured from any government financing institution on the said land shall be considered as additional factors to determine its valuation.

This provision has not been deleted from the CARPER law.

Thus, it will not be surprising if CARPER will result in the reconcentration of land to the landlords and more cancellations of certificate of land transfer (CLTs), certificate of land ownership awards (CLOAs) and emancipation patents (EPs) as farmer-beneficiaries would be unable to pay for the amortization.

In fact, according to the DAR itself, in the year 2000, more than 375,000 hectares of land given to farmers have reverted back to landlords.

The DAR also reported in 2007 that 5,049 EPs and 103,092 CLOAs were already canceled involving 204,579 hectares of land. The figure does not include pending cases of cancellation.

The DAR figures are way below the results of a study of independent think tank Ibon Foundation that revealed that by the middle of 2004 alone, more than 2,000 EPs and CLOAs covering 380,000 hectares of land were canceled.

Mariano said, on average, the cost of agricultural lands is pegged at P235,00 ($5,082) per hectare. With six percent interest and land tax, farmers would find it hard to pay for amortization, Mariano said.

Rejected Amendments

The progressive party-list bloc in Congress proposed amendments to the bill during the second reading but the sponsors and the majority flatly rejected their proposals.

Among these were: deletion of provisions that exempted certain agricultural lands for CARP coverage; the distribution of land controlled and leased by multinational corporations; the deletion of Section 65 of the bill regarding the conversion of lands already awarded to farmers; and, the deletion of the so-called non-land transfer schemes in the definition of agrarian reform as stated in Section 3 of the bill.

Mariano said the retention of these provisions from the original law will pave the way for more cases of land-use conversion. The conversion of land to other uses is one of the methods used by landowners to circumvent CARP. DAR records show that in the first seven years of CARP, an estimated 33,707 hectares of agricultural lands were converted into other uses. By the end of 1997, conversion has covered 59, 965 hectares of agricultural lands.

The report of the National Statistics Office is more telling. In 2002, the NSO reported that 827, 892 hectares of lands have been converted to other uses.

CARP gives an option to landowners to choose all other arrangements alternative to the physical distribution of lands, such as production or profit-sharing, labor administration, and distribution of shares of stocks which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.

The KMP asserts that this provision undermines the intent of any agrarian-reform program.

Mariano said this very provision was used by the Cojuangcos of Tarlac to spare the nearly 6,500 hectares of Hacienda Luisita from land distribution. Instead of actual land distribution, the farmers were given shares of stocks in the company under the stock-distribution option. But far from making the farmers instant millionaires, the stock options instead denied the farmers and farmworkers from owning a piece of Hacienda Luisita land that they have been tilling for more than five decades. This is precisely the kind of feudal setup that a genuine agrarian-reform program ought to break. Furthermore, the shares of farmers whose services are terminated by the Hacienda Luisita management are automatically forfeited.

On the island of Negros, other stock-option and joint-venture schemes by Eduardo Cojuangco are prevalent, particularly in Pontevedra, La Carlota City, La Castellana and Himamaylan City.

Class Struggle

Mariano said the most effective evidence that the struggle of peasants for land has been won is the actual cultivation of the land for their own benefit. The struggle of the farm workers of Hacienda Luisita has been a good example. Defying the Cojuangcos, the farm workers cultivated more than a thousand hectares of land for their own benefit.

However, for as long as landlords and big businessmen hold the political and economic power, the just struggle of Filipino farmers for land will continue. By not implementing a genuine agrarianreform program that will pave the way for social justice, the Arroyo regime has, in effect, validated the need for the agrarian revolution that is already raging in the countryside.