Blaze R.

Perater BS ECE

Assignment in PolSci

CARP must be Seriously Implemented

For a long period of time, the agrarian system of the Philippines was controlled by
landlords. It held a feudalistic approach. As a result, many small and marginal farmers are
struggling for their survival.
In response to the peoples clamor for a more effective land reform, Pres. Corazon
C. Aquino signed the R.A. No. 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law which is
the legal basis of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). It is an act instituting a
comprehensive agrarian reform program to promote social justice and industrialization,
providing the mechanism for its implementation, and for other purpose.
The law covers all public and private agricultural lands above 7 hectares regardless
of crops produced or the tenurial arrangement, including commercial plantations. The
beneficiaries are the workers in the land given that they are landless and willing to till. It
provides delivery of support services to these beneficiaries. There is also an arrangement
that ensure the tenurial security of the farmer-beneficiaries such as leasehold arrangement,
stock distribution option and production and profit sharing. It also increases the adjudication
body that will resolve agrarian disputes. The implementing agencies are the Department of
Agrarian Reform (DAR) and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Under the law, land acquisition and distribution (LAD) shall be accomplished within
ten years, starting on June 10, 1988 and ending on June 10, 1998. However, after ten
years, DAR only accomplished 56% of 2.7 million target beneficiaries while the DENR only
accomplished 77% of the 1.7 million target beneficiaries. On 2000, the DAR accomplished
63% of the target. The failure to achieve its original targets led to the formation of
CARPER(Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms) which is
passed on 2008. According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), LAD balance of the DAR
is still 1,034, 661 hectares to 621,154 farmers while in the DENR is 572,902 hectares to
654,443 farmers after 27 years. This means that seven in every ten farmers do not own the
land they till.
Combined resources of the government agencies proved useless in face of landlord
resistance to land reform. Example is the Hacienda Matias in Quezon Province where the
owners deployed armed men across the hacienda perimeters, rendering the farmers
CLOAs(Certificate of Land Ownership Award) without worth. There is also lack of support
services for farmers because of the underfunding of CARP. Instead of P225 billion funding
requirement, the landlords who dominated the congress only allowed P175 billion. The law
also has loopholes which delayed the actual distribution of the lands. Example is the
Hacienda Luisita where instead of CLOAs, farmers were given SDOs(Stock Distribution
Option) corporate landowners may give farmer-beneficiaries the right to purchase capital
stock of the corporation instead of turning over the land for CARP coverage. The
government has even paid P471 million to the Hacienda Luisita Inc. for the turning over the
6,6000 square meters of the 4,099 hectare land to the 6,212 tenant farmers. Some farmers
even failed to live long enough to hold their elusive CLOAs. Anxious about the neglect of
CARP, they made all sorts of effort to get the government to seriously implement the
program. They did hunger strikes, barefoot marches and demonstrations.
The purpose of the CARP is good but the government should seriously implement
the law by taking steps to remove the loopholes and using their supreme authority.