December
2008
LANDLORDS, TO BENEFIT MOST FROM CARP EXTENSION
NEWS RELEASE
17 December 2008
For Reference: REP LIZA MAZA 0920-9134540
LANDLORDS, TO BENEFIT MOST FROM CARP EXTENSION
“This joint resolution simply spells six months more of misery for landless peasants,” Thus said Gabriela Womens Party Representative Liza Maza who dubbed the move to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program as a “grand sham, a sarswela of landlords meant to give peasants false hopes of land distribution, when all their proposal contains is an extension of a program that has proven to be an utter failure.”
“The ill-designed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of this government which has proven its futility for the past 2 decades will only worsen the problem of landlessness. The CARP never guaranteed the peasants’ rights to own the land they till. In fact, big landlords made use of the same law to evade land distribution, strengthen their control over vast tracts of agricultural lands,” said Maza.
The Gabriela solon explained, “The existing CARP which the resolution extends for another six months provides loopholes to big landowners like the Arroyos. The existing CARP allowed the conversion of lands, various exemptions and exclusions and schemes such as the Stock Distribution Option, all of which have been used by big landowners to retain ownership of haciendas and agricultural lands.”
Militant lawmakers are instead pushing for HB 3059 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill which will provide for free distribution of all agricultural lands to farmer beneficiaries.
“Let us instead enact a genuine land reform program that provides for measures that will secure the lands of peasant-beneficiari es from re-confiscation and encourages the establishment of cooperatives, services and other forms of agricultural assistance to help beneficiaries improve their productivity. Let us instead enact a program that will distribute land to the tillers, for free and move towards putting an end to land monopoly and bondage in this country.”
