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THE
Congressional Oversight Committee on Agriculture and
Fisheries Modernization (Cocafm) was asked to formulate
an immediate plan of action for the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which is set to expire
on June 10.
“Since
it will expire by June, I have commissioned a special
committee under Cocafm to come up with an independent
study that will provide a clearer perspective on the
different scenarios that may take place in extending
CARP and its funding, as well as key legislative actions
we must urgently make,” Sen. Edgardo Angara, chairman of
the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, reported
over the weekend.
Embodied
in Republic Act 6657 passed in 1988, the original
comprehensive agrarian reform law, which provided the
legal basis for the implementation of CARP, was extended
in 1998 to another 10 years and the extension is due to
expire on June 10, 2008.
Angara
explained that under the CARP law, landless farmers and
workers may now own directly or collectively the land
they till or to receive a share of the fruits of the
land.
He noted
that according to the Department of Agrarian Reform,
there are almost 7 million hectares of agricultural
lands which have already been distributed to over 4
million farmer-beneficiaries, but there still remains
over a million hectares of private agricultural lands
yet to be distributed to another 2 million
beneficiaries.
Angara
added that various comprehensive and academic studies
have established empirical data that CARP, where it was
successfully implemented, have contributed to poverty
alleviation, establishment of peace in the countryside
and improved the welfare of agrarian-reform
beneficiaries.
He
reported that a group of experts composed of academics
from the University of Asia and the Pacific and the
University
of Philippines-Los Baños and research institutions such
as the
Southeast Asian Regional
Center
for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture is
expected to submit the independent study before Cocafm
on May 1, 2008.
Angara
asserted that “agriculture is the best and most
cost-effective weapon against poverty [so] we must,
therefore, work toward putting an aggressive program to
attain further development, especially in the rural and
agricultural areas of our country.” |
