WITH barely two months left to decide on the fate of the Comprehensive Agrarian-Reform Program (CARP), agrarian-reform advocates warned that hunger and poverty may worsen should Congress fail to pass a bill funding the program’s extension for another 5 to 10 years.

Nueva Ecija 1st District Rep. Edgard Joson said the fate of CARP depends on the approval of the proposed P327-billion budget for CARP’s extension, taking into consideration the remaining 1.3 million hectares of “CARP-able” land which the government still has to distribute and the need to continue the support services to sustain the gains of the program in the rural areas.

He told reporters during a press conference in Quezon City Monday that extending CARP is now up to the leadership of the House of Representatives and the members of Lakas-Kampi, the dominant party in the House of Representatives.

At the same press conference, agrarian-reform advocates reiterated their call for the government to extend the program in the wake of the looming food crisis.

The Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) also said imposing a ban on land conversion is not enough to solve the current rice crisis, saying extending CARP to boost food production will.

Jimmy Tadeo, chairman of Paragos-Pilipinas, said with 1.3 million hectares of land remaining undistributed, the fate of more than 635,000 landless farmers and farm workers are in peril once Congress fails to extend CARP.

He added that the nondistribution of the lands would only exacerbate the worsening poverty and hunger in the countryside.

Akbayan Party-list Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel, a board member of PLCPD, agreed with the farmers, saying hunger and poverty being experienced in the countryside is directly linked to the problem of landlessness. Hontiveros-Baraquel authored House Bill 1257, which seeks to accelerate and strengthen the implementation of CARP, which she said will help prevent the food crisis.

Joson said the members of Lakas-Kampi, which now has the power to extend or reject the proposal to extend CARP, will be a factor in deciding the fate of CARP.  “I don’t know what Speaker [Prospero] Nograles is up to, but it is up to the dominant party, Lakas-Kampi, now whether to pass the bill.  If they are not going to pass it within the next two months, then it will be very difficult to pass it in the next three years,” he said.

Joson said the consolidated bill the Committee on Agrarian Reform will likely come up with will have certain amendments. 

Different versions of a bill that seeks to extend CARP have been filed by lawmakers, including party-list lawmakers led by Rep. Hontiveros-Baraquel, which seeks certain amendment to the program.  Five more bills in support of CARP extension have been filed before the House of Representatives as of April 11, 2008.

The legislators who authored the bills extending CARP were Rep. Wilfredo Mark Enverga (HB 2948), Rep. Edgar M. Chatto (HB 3369), Rep. Liwayway Vinzons-Chato (HB 3559), Rep. Eduardo Nonato N. Joson (HB 3613) and Rep. Leonila V. Chavez (HB 3702).

Each bill seeks to strengthen CARP implementation by amending for the purpose pertinent provisions of RA 6657, but the bills in the period of extension and the amount of additional funding support to accelerate CARP.

Joson proposed to fund CARP by amending the expanded value-added tax (E-VAT) law.  He said there’s a need to amend the law so as to channel a portion of the revenue generated by the government through E-VAT to fund CARP. 

He said the government can also source some funds from the sale of government assets, which he said is obviously being resorted to by the administration to raise funds, anyway.

The lawmaker from Nueva Ecija, however, said there’s now a need to shift focus from land acquisition to the more bigger task of providing support services to boost food production.

“The problem is, there was no sufficient funding allocated for support services.  Allocation for support services accounted for only 25-percent out of the total budget appropriations for CARP. 

There would have been no problem with a 25 percent allocation if the total amount appropriated for CARP is sufficient to accommodate the budgetary needs of the three program components,” he said.

He is confident the P327-billion fund for CARP’s extension by another seven years should be enough to compensate for lands which should now be subjected to compulsory land acquisition and distribution.  Under the consolidated bill, he said voluntary land transfer and voluntary offer to sell should be repealed. 

This will help ensure there would be no excess or wastages of government resources vis-à-vis the shortening of the extension period by three years because the amount of the program components are already pegged under Section 10 of the proposed measure.

The portion allocated for the program from the General Appropriations Act has been increased to P15 billion from P3 billion in order to address the issues of inflation and obtain a reliable funding source, Joson said.

WITH barely two months left to decide on the fate of the Comprehensive Agrarian-Reform Program (CARP), agrarian-reform advocates warned that hunger and poverty may worsen should Congress fail to pass a bill funding the program’s extension for another 5 to 10 years.

IF the country seems to be running out of economic steam due to the global growth slowdown and soaring commodity prices, the Philippines, like many other developing countries, still has an ace to play in global trade, according to the United Nations Trade and Development (Unctad).

AS the Senate resumed its sessions Monday, independent think tank IBON Foundation again urged senators to reject the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa), saying that the P365 billion in investments that the deal will supposedly bring is too high a price to pay for the death of the local manufacturing sector.

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced the appointment of a new country director for its Philippine Country office this month.

The militant farmers belonging to the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Tuesday rejected Sen. Edgardo Angara’s proposal to privatize the National Food Authority (NFA) owing to the agency’s failure to address the rice crisis.

THE Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) on Friday convened industry stakeholders and other government agencies in crafting a National Land Transport Policy Framework (NLTPF).

DAVAO CITY—Philippine Airlines would add another Airbus flight to this city beginning Thursday to decongest the volume of traffic in this route that has built up since the Holy Week holidays.