Senator files bill seeking to cancel farmers' debts under CARP

A senator has filed a measure seeking to write off all the debts farmers incurred under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto's bill seeks to cancel all unpaid amortizations, interests, penalties, surcharges on loans farmers incurred under the CARP.

If the bill becomes a law “the agrarian reform beneficiaries shall be deemed rightful owners of the lands awarded to them,” Recto said in a statement on Saturday, adding, “If we have forgiven billionaires debts, why not CARP loans of farmers?”

Landowners whose properties were subjected to land distribution will still be paid, he said. “Their right to be paid on time and based on the legal contracts will be honored and will not be impaired.”

In one official report, only P2.5 billion of the P14.3 billion in amortization for loans granted to awardees of CARP from 1987 to 2004 was paid.

Collection performance by the Land Bank of the Philippines on CARP loans, on the other hand, was about 51% as of March 2015.

Recto said the total amount of land reform loans for condonation is small compared to the hundreds of billions in private sector loans the bank had written off over the past 40 years.

“We have bailed out banks, paid for white elephant projects, amortized foreign loans of dubious benefits, lost money in bankrupt firms, entered into joint ventures which left us holding the bag,” pointed out.

He lamented: “Government has a history of being generous to corporate deadbeats whose loans we guaranteed and eventually assumed. But we have not extended the same consideration to the farming poor.”

Recto said condoning the loans will be a big load off farmer’s backs and also from offices that manage these receivables.

Also, he said, wiping off nonperforming CARP loans serves the ends of social justice, “under whose canopy agrarian reform was pursued, in the hope that emancipated farmers will be able to improve their lives, feed the nation and grow the economy.” —LBG, GMA News