Untitled

CARPER: The challenge to Congress (THE VIEWS)

Source : MIRIAM CORONEL FERRER

WAYS OF SPECIES

ABS-CBN NEWS VIEWS/EDITORIAL

Alright, ladies and gentlemen of the two Houses of Congress. Many of you, especially among the gentlemen of the Lower House, have had your thrill watching the Pacquiao-Hatton fight live in Las Vegas. So you were inconvenienced by the imposed quarantine to guard against the spread of swine flu. Fine, you still have your pork. You’re even several hundred or thousand dollars richer with you winning bet on your countryman.

But for christsake, it’s time you buckle down to work. It’s time you sit down and do the right thing for the thousands of farmers and landless agricultural workers whose lives depend on the stroke of your pens. Show us that your sense of solidarity is not confined to the glory of a boxing match. Pass the bill extending the CARP with reforms (CARPER). Do penance, rectify, that abominable Resolution No. 19 that you in the Lower House passed in December 2008 extending the CARP for six months but stopping all compulsory acquisition of lands that have already been given notice of coverage under land reform.

Those 25 or so members of Congress who were part of Pacquiao’s informal entourage, can you give the same support you gave our boxing hero to our landless farmers by voting in favor of the Senate Bill No. 2666 and House Bill No. 4077 that will extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for five years and institute new supportive measures? Manny Pacquiao would have understood the urgency. He after all came from the ranks of the downtrodden. Many of you in Congress did not, and a good number among you are in possession of CARP-able land. But can you find in your hearts even a tablespoonful of the same empathy for the rural poor that your boxing idol has shown in large doses?

First of all, disabuse yourself of the claims that land reform has not really benefited the rural landless. That they end up selling the redistributed land. That small-scale production is inefficient. That agricultural lands are better utilized for other economic activity. And that in effect the landless are better off the way they are.

Several recent studies made by economists like Cielito Habito and Arsenio Balisacan have shown that claims like these to justify burying the CARP are not supported by the findings. Farming households in possession of land have been found to have increased their incomes. Poverty incidence among those who are part of an Agrarian Reform Community have decreased from 40% to 25% from 1990 to 2000 because of improved yields from owned lands. More of the children among these farmer-beneficiaries have finished schooling. Several other surveys conducted in 1996 and most recently in 2006 have found that no more that 17 percent of beneficiaries have sold their lands.

Two-hectare lots planted to rice, corn and coconut have also proven to be competitively productive. Contract growing and other modes like cooperatives and joint production can also create the benefits of economies of scale, but without the land monopoly that one finds in traditional plantations and large agribusiness enterprises. All these benefits are important to our food security.

In contrast, the chances of being poor or poorer are higher when correlated with landlessness, and more so in the absence of irrigation and other support services.

The two pending bills provide at least P100 billion budget allocation during the five-year extension. In the Senate Bill, up to 40 percent of these funds will go to support services delivery. The Senate Bill also prohibits conversion of irrigated and irrigable lands to non-agricultural purposes. At the same time, it proposes to include in the valuation of lands for acquisition the value of standing crops – in a way, give more incentive to the landowner to let go.

In all, there are more guarantees and reforms found in the Senate compared to the House versions. But both bills will have to be passed upon Third Reading in both Houses and negotiated at the bicameral level. What distortions and dilution – if not outright death by inaction or suffocation – will take place remains to be seen.

The CARP was passed in 1988. Twenty-plus years later, the Department of Agrarian Reform has yet to meet the land acquisition targets, especially those involving the estates of big and influential landlords. One generation later, the social justice principle that lies at the heart of agrarian reform -- over and above the economic arguments -- has not been fully served.

Can we blame the farmers and their supporters from among the middle-class, the Catholic church and NGOs, if they intend to shepherd the two bills to fruition the best way they could – in terms of numbers massed up and taking their seats on the streets in the weeks to come before Congress once again takes a break?

This is exactly what the farmers’ groups plan to do to ram the reality of rural poverty and unfulfilled reforms to you lawmakers-- long after Manny Pacquiao’s welcome parade has folded up.