AGRARIAN Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman on Tuesday formally asked President Arroyo’s support to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by certifying as urgent a bill in Congress endorsing the program’s extension.

Pangandaman said he made the appeal in a recent Cabinet meeting during which he made a brief report about the status of the program.

The move to continue the program beyond its deadline in 2008 is crucial to allow the DAR to distribute another 1.077 million hectares of private agricultural lands, Pangandaman said.

Based on the current inventory of CARP scope, over a million hectares of newly discovered properties could still be covered for land acquisition and distribution, which could benefit new farmer-beneficiaries. 

Those awarded with land titles, meanwhile, will need infrastructure and marketing support to bolster agribusiness opportunities in their communities. 

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Pangandaman said, will distribute 581,813 hectares of public lands.

Interest groups, led by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, have expressed concern over the impact of the pending expiration of the program, saying that the initiatives mean a lot to agrarian-reform beneficiaries who would have to put up with the adverse effect once the program ends in 2008.

There are at least two bills filed by sympathetic lawmakers before the House Committee on Agrarian Reform which provided an impetus to sustain the gains of the program in agrarian-reform communities nationwide.

Palawan Rep. Abraham Mitra introduced House Bill 5693, while Akbayan Reps. Ana Theresa Hontiveros-Baraquel, Mario Aguja and Loretta Rosales sponsored House Bill 5743.

The issue of agrarian reform is beginning to heat up as the program’s legislative demise draws to a close. 

STATE-owned Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has set up a P1-billion livelihood facility to benefit overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in partnership with Smart Communications Inc.

THE long delays in the Australian decision to completely lift the ban on Philippine tropical fruits have slowly strained trade relations between the two countries and affected private-sector decision to explore New Zealand market that offers better terms to similar products also found in Canberra, said a senior trade diplomat.

AGRARIAN Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman on Tuesday formally asked President Arroyo’s support to extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by certifying as urgent a bill in Congress endorsing the program’s extension.

CACAO producers are eyeing to hike cocoa production to as much as 15,000 metric tons (MT) within five years or almost triple the average 5,600 MT dry cocoa beans produced by the Philippines annually.

JAPANESE firms in the services sector would prefer to invest first in China, Thailand and Vietnam before going to the Philippines due to the relatively smaller number of Japanese-speaking people here.