GARB The Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB), with its aim to break up the monopoly of a

few landowners and foreign control of agricultural lands, must now be enacted to put an end to
feudal and semi-feudal exploitation in the Philippine countryside. Genuine land redistribution must
be attended with a holistic program of support services that empower the peasantry politically,
nurture their productive strength and carry out the spirit of true corporativism. Agrarian reform
must also be integrated with a program of national industrialization as key to genuine national
development. House Bill 4296 is seeking to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program
(CARP) while House Bill 4375 seeks the creation of an Agrarian Reform Commission.

 CARP must now be completely junked along with destructive neoliberal schemes such as
the SDO and Avas. Agrarian reform advocates must rethink their support for the pestilence
called CARP.

 in reaction to Billy dela Rosa’s article titled “CARP: Key to national development” (Talk
of the Town, 3/29/15). Dela Rosa said that a more radical faction is demanding an end to
the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP and is pushing for the passage of
the genuine agrarian reform bill or GARB. However, he did not give GARB’s features any
space in his arguments.
 His piece dwelt on the history of the government land distribution programs from the
Quirino presidency up to CARP that ran for almost three decades with two extensions
from1988).

 CARP’s numerous loopholes, which Dela Rosa himself presented, led however to this: A
bogus land reform program, CARP can only go so far as to create illusions of reform
while actually maintaining land monopoly and foolishly attempting to suppress peasant
unrest. The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas accurately describes CARP as the longest-
running, most expensive and bloodiest bogus land reform program in the world, even
before it finally expired in June 2014
 Free land distribution is one of the main features of GARB as this is the essence of social
justice. Dela Rosa even decries CARP’s meager budget without mentioning that billions
of pesos in public funds have actually been used to compensate despotic land-grabbers or
lost to bureaucratic corruption and “support service” scams.
 Cory Aquino’s CARP provided for a non-land transfer scheme, the stock distribution
option (SDO), which turned farmworkers into “stockholders” with slave wages—P9.50 per
payday in HLI. In 2012, the Supreme Court revoked HLI’s oppressive SDO. The scheme,
however, is still in effect in a dozen haciendas in Negros and elsewhere, affecting
thousands of farmworkers up to this day.
 Majority of Luisita beneficiaries who have meanwhile been awarded Cloas have now fallen
prey to illicit leaseback contracts or aryendo brokered by dummies to maintain the Aquino-
Cojuangcos’ control over sugarcane production.

Support no. 2
 Peasant groups appealed to Catholic bishops to support the Genuine Agrarian Reform
Bill, instead of pushing for the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program.
 The Anakpawis partylist and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) made the
statement in response to the recent appeal to President Aquino made by the Catholic
Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. At least 81 Catholic Church leaders have signed
the appeal that says, “’give new life and glorious finish’ to the 27-year-old CARP by
passing the twin measures House Bill 4296 and House Bill 4375 for the sake of Filipino
farmers.”
 in their recent appeal to Aquino, the prelates said, “Not extending CARP and ensuring the
gains of the program is tantamount to disenfranchising at least a million farmers of their
right to own the land they till, equitably share in the fruits of their labor and find a path
out of poverty.”
 The peasant group said that CARP provided non-land transfer schemes, like the Stock
Distribution Option (SDO) scheme in the Cojuangco’s Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac
province, corporative scheme in Negros Occidental, leasehold operations, and leaseback
arrangements.
 These schemes “exempted vast tracts of landholdings of big landlords and agro-
corporations from actual and physical land distribution to farmer-beneficiaries.”
 Carp also established Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs), which laid the ground for
corporate intervention and control of agribusinesses over vast tracts of lands.
with GARB, all agricultural lands will be subjected to distribution. Other non-land
transfer schemes such as the SDO, joint venture and among others will be prohibited to
make sure that land owners will not have a chance to re-concentrate farm lands through
dummy corporations engaging in agri-business schemes
The five-year extension of CARP or CARPER, (2009-2014) got a P150-billion (3.392
billion) budgetary allocation.
 The DAR’s figures of so-called accomplishments are aimed to deceive farmers,” Mariano
said adding that the DAR’s figures did not reflect reversals and cancellations of so-called
certificates of land ownership and included lands locked in agrarian disputes like
Hacienda Looc and Hacienda Yulo in Southern Tagalog, among others.
 “Land-grabbing in the form of land-use conversions intensified under CARP. DAR
records showed that from 1979 to December 31, 2003, there were 2,885 approved
applications for conversion involving 40,485.9124 hectares of agricultural lands, while
the National Statistics Office (NSO), in 2002, cited that 827,892 hectares of agricultural
land have been converted to other uses.”
 ‘ hence why Garb is what is needed’
Sources:
https://www.bulatlat.com/2015/03/04/peasant-groups-urge-catholic-bishops-support-garb-
not-carp/
https://opinion.inquirer.net/84198/genuine-agrarian-reform-not-carp-key-to-national-devt
http://www.congress.gov.ph/legisdocs/basic_17/HB00555.pdf
file:///D:/Downloads/GARB-vs.-CARP.pdf