CARP extension meant to benefit landowners - IBON

MANILA, Philippines - Proposals from Malacañang and some lawmakers to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) may benefit landowners in the end, militant think tank IBON Foundation said Wednesday. In a statement, IBON said merely extending the recently lapsed CARP will create more opportunities for landowners and agribusiness firms to consolidate their control over agricultural lands. The group said proposals for CARP extension include the "farmland as collateral" provision, a key component of so-called market-oriented land reform. "Farmers availing of the provision to access credit may find their lands foreclosed, resulting in reconsolidation of already-redistributed agricultural lands in the hands of landlords and large agribusiness firms," it said. It added the present flawed program has failed to stop bankrupt farmers from selling or transferring distributed lands, despite 10-year prohibitions on such transfers. On the other hand, it said Malacañang will be able to use the proposal to push for its initiatives to develop corporate farms and facilitate foreign and local agricultural investment through the Agrarian Reform Community (ARC) concept. This will further increase the insecurity of land tenure in the countryside, it said. "The proposal to extend CARP is meant to fine-tune the bankrupt program to continue restructuring local agriculture in order to suit the needs of big land owners and agro-corporations," it said. IBON also said bills filed at the House of Representatives are even more dangerous for small and landless farmers since introducing reforms to the flawed CARP "undermines the historical and moral claim of farmers to own the land they till for free." "Requiring farmers to pay for the land perpetuates one of the biggest flaws of CARP—that the program is essentially a real estate transaction between landlords and farmers, with the government as the middle man," it said. IBON said the present agrarian situation proves that CARP in its 20 years of implementation has failed and has been used to legitimize various forms of land-grabbing. Thus, it said that instead of extending the flawed CARP, what is needed is a "genuine program that is not designed to perpetuate landlord-business and agro-corporate interests but upholds land distribution as key for social justice." - GMANews.TV