Gabriela solon says no to bogus CARP extension

Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Luz Ilagan finds no reason for the continued implementation of the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which, “instead of emancipating farmers from their impoverished condition has only condemned them into a lifetime of bondage and poverty”.

Twenty years have passed since it was first implemented by the Aquino administration but our farmers remain landless. The prevailing landlessness sank three million women farmers, including 2.23 million unpaid family workers, further into abject impoverishment.

“There is no reason to extend CARP, a program designed not to distribute lands to farmers but to perpetuate monopoly of land ownership by a few,” Ilagan said.

Mindanao, for instance, is still dominated by feudal lords, the landed elites from Luzon and transnational corporations which have turned former farmers into mere plantation workers.

Neither is there a reason to simply amend CARP, according to the militant lawmaker, as its design defeats the very purpose of agrarian reform, which is to implement social justice by giving land to the tillers themselves.

“CARP deceives the Filipino farmers by allowing non-land transfer schemes such as corporative schemes, joint venture agreements, production / profit sharing schemes and stock distribution option as alternative to land distribution,” she said.

These schemes exempt and exclude vast tracks of private agricultural land, even those already reserved for farmers with Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA), for conversion to agro-industrial business areas.

Nestle’s 160,000 hectares of farmlands in Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur, Tadeco’s 11,048 hectares of banana plantation in Davao del Norte, Del Monte and Dole’s 200,000 hectares of banana and pineapple plantations are instances of deceptive land acquisition by transnational corporations.

According to Ilagan, “the alarming speed at which corn and rice lands are being transformed into agri-businesses threatens Mindanao’s food self-sufficiency and title as ‘food basket’. This trend of land conversion and dependence on market-driven crops during a global financial crisis will spell hunger worse than during the rice shortage early this year.”

Aside from the CARP’s doomed-to-fail-right-from-the-start design, Ilagan also blames President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the anti-people policies she implemented such as the Revitalization of Minerals Industry Program and the disadvantageous agreements she entered into with foreign countries such as that with the Canadian-owned Toronto Ventures Inc., which are clear sell-out of our rich lands and which further constrict our farmers’ chances of owning the land. 

“The members of the House have a choice aside from extending the implementation of CARP. We can start a genuine agrarian reform program which will redistribute the lands free for our farmers and eliminate all forms of exploitation against them.”

Ilagan urges her co-lawmakers help farmers attain social justice by passing instead House Bill 3055, also known as the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB) she co-authored with Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza-Maza, and Bayan Muna Reps. Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casino.