House special panel on CARP formed

MANILA, Philippines - A special House panel that will meet with the Senate so the two Congress chambers can find common ground regarding the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has been formed, Speaker Prospero Nograles announced on Monday. In a press conference, Nograles said the "special informal Speaker's panel" would work with the Senate in finding provisions that are acceptable for both chambers to speed up the deliberations on the measure's extension before it expires in June. "The principle is reverse bicam. This is back-channeling before we start debating again on the floor," Nograles said. He said the panel would be composed of Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia (Cebu); Majority Leader Arthur Defensor Sr. (Iloilo); CARP extension with reforms advocates Edcel Lagman (Albay) and Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel (Akbayan party-list); Agrarian Reform Committee chair and Elias Bulut Jr. (Apayao); and Luis Villafuerte (Camarines Sur). Nograles expressed hope that the panel, along with senators, would be able to discuss the issue over the Congress break so that both chambers can work on agrarian reform legislation when session resumes on April 13. Congress is set to go on a break from March 7 to April 12. Last December, Congress passed before going on a break Joint Congressional Resolution No. 19, which extends the CARP for six months minus the compulsory land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component of the program. The move caused uproar among some farmers groups and religious groups who said legislators in effect killed CARP with the exclusion of the LAD since it made land distribution voluntary on the part of land owners. - Johanna Camille Sisante, GMANews.TV