'People's initiative' tool for agrarian reform - bishop

MANILA, Philippines - A Roman Catholic bishop on Monday said the controversial "people's initiative" can be used to pressed for the extension of the agrarian reform law. The country's Catholic bishops, however, have consistently issued a statement opposing the so-called people's initiative to amend the Philippine Constitution. Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, chairman of the country's Catholic Bishops' Conference social action body, said his proposal does not intend to push Charter change but to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. In a news story on the CBCP website, Pabillo was quoted as saying that bishops are eyeing the peoples initiative process to lobby for a bill seeking the extension of the agrarian reform law. "There's the people's initiative we are trying to see...(and) make use...to make a law on CARP and send it to Congress," Pabillo said. The country's bishops have been calling for the extension of the agrarian reform law that expired last year and is only kept alive through a resolution passed by Congress, which gives it an additional six-month effectivity. The bishops, however, said the resolution was crafted not really to extend the law but "to kill agrarian reform." The resolution mandated the removal of the compulsory acquisition mode of land distribution. Several bishops led by Pabillo joined farmers in a hunger strike last December to press for the extension of the agrarian reform law. The CBCP earlier expressed opposition to the people's initiative to amend the Constitution. The exercise was "dangerous unclear and open to manipulation by groups with self-serving interests," the bishops said. Under the initiative, amendments to the Constitution may be directly proposed by the people through a petition of at least twelve percent of the total number of registered voters. - GMANews.TV