House OKs on 2nd reading bill removing unpaid dues of CARP beneficiaries

The House of Representatives on Monday approved on second reading a measure writing off unpaid amortization and other tax dues of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB) stemming from the land they got under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

“This is to emancipate ARBs from the financial burden of paying loans extended in relation to awarded agricultural land under the agrarian reform program, as well as provide broadened support services to ARBs and thus make them more productive and economically  emancipated,” the committee report on the measure read.

House Bill 6336 also prohibits ARBs from converting their CARP land to non-agricultural land within 20 years after the bill is enacted into law.

The 20-year timeframe was an increase to a previous 10-year under the committee-approved version of the measure and an amendment pushed by Albay Representative Edcel Lagman.

“I would like to thank the sponsor for accepting my amendment and adopting it as committee amendment,” Lagman said to bill sponsor, Albay Representative Joey Salceda.

Lagman initially said that the time before ARBs are allowed to convert their land to non-agricultural purposes should be as long as 30 years.

“[Otherwise], we are not emancipating them [from debts] but we are emancipating them to lose their land,” he said.

Other salient provisions of the bill include:

•     frees land from mortgage liens and encumbrances in favor of the National Government

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•     provides that the government will subrogate the ARBs to pay the remaining balance of the compensation due the concerned landowners for lands acquired under the voluntary land transfer and direct payment scheme
•     ARBs yet to be awarded with agricultural land from the CARP or any other agrarian reform law will receive so without any obligation for amortization
•     provides a broadened scope of support services to ARBs, giving priority to those who have already completed payment of the amortization schedule
•     exempts estate tax payments on awarded lands to ARBs
•     mandates the dismissal, motu proprio, by the DAR or the court, of any pending administrative or judicial case involving the forfeiture by the DAR of the agrarian reform award solely due to the failure of an ARB to pay the thirty (30)-year amortization plus six percent (6%) annual interest
•     mandates the termination of the execution of a final and executory administrative or judicial case decision due to the failure of an ARB to pay the 30-year amortization plus 6% annual interest resulting in the disqualification of the ARB, the cancellation of the agrarian reform title, the extinguishment of the rights of possession and ownership of the awarded land, as well as the removal of the person from the awarded land or the dismantling of any improvements found therein
•     disqualifies ARBs for acts and omissions constituting violations of agrarian reform laws including willful refusal by the ARB to make the land productive or deliberate neglect, for a period of two calendar years and
•     upholds the right of the landowner of awarded lands to just compensation.

—AOL, GMA Integrated News