The Agrarian Reform in the Philippines is a program that is supposed to help Filipino

farmers improve the quality of their lives by fairly distributing unused lands to them. It seeks to
address the problems of poverty and improve the agriculture in the Philippines. But according to
the interview with CCCP Co-convenor Atty. Christian Monsod, it was clear that there was still
injustice with our Filipino farmers.

One of the injustices that the farmers faced was the broken promise of 150 billion pesos
fund. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program states that the farmers were promised a
total of 150 billion pesos in funds but according to Atty. Monsod, the farmers would only be
getting 40 billion pesos after claims with Cocolife, while Mr. Cojuangco and San Miguel would
be getting at least 91 billion pesos.

It’s ironic that arguably one of the most important jobs, the people who provide food for
the whole country, are being paid so little and get so little attention from the government. As said
by Atty. Monsod, “there is something wrong with this country.”

According to the video “Cultivating Future Farmers - Calata Foundation”, one of the
problems that the Philippines is facing today in regards to farmers is that almost no one wants to
become a farmer. The income from being a farmer is significantly low and this shows in the
documentary by Kara David named “Minsan sa Isang Taon”. The people that reside in Sitio
Banli live their lives farming for abaca, an important material in the making of our currency. The
income is so low that the family in the documentary mostly eat potatoes and the kids have really
fat cheeks which Kara David states was not normal. They rarely get to eat rice and this just
shows how lucky I am and made me appreciate life more.

In my opinion, one of the ways to improve the Agrarian Reform is to utlilize technology
more to improve the efficiency and productivity of agriculture in the Philippines. For example,
the making of research and development in agricultural technology for farming.