Agricultural Training Institute, Department of Agriculture, Elliptical Road, QC

March 27-28, 2012

Two years after the passage of CARP Extension with Reforms (CARPER) or RA 9700, President Nonoy Aquino has yet to make significant headway towards the completion of land redistribution. With a balance of 1.06 million hectares as of December 2011, the Department of Agrarian Reform was only able to redistribute 88,545 hectares out of its target of 200,000 hectares in 2010, and 86,209 hectares in 2011. At this average of 80,000 hectare-accomplishment rate, DAR will not be able to finish the land distribution component of CARPER by June 2014.

Manila—Some 100  farmer members of the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (SARA) yesterday called on President Aquino to fast track implementation of CARPer (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program  Extension with Reforms) passed in 2010. “We are extremely inflamed that all movements seen from the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) officials and their staff on the ground tell us that they are terrifyingly delayed from fulfilling their land distribution target of 1.06 hectares to more than 500,000 million farmer beneficiaries,” Jaime Tadeo of PARAGOS and lead member of SARA announced. 

The Focus on the Global South – Philippines Programme said that DAR was only able to distribute 86,209 hectares in 2011, which is only 43 percent of its target of 200,000 hectares of land. This is a measly 8 percent of the total balance of 1.06 million hectares up for land distribution. In 2010, DAR distributed 88,545 hectares 

By Mary Ann Manahan, Focus on the Global South-Philippines/Southeast Asia Program

We are seeing the retreat of agrarian reform as a result of the Department of Agrarian Reform's (DAR) lackluster performance, national government's budget cuts for program implementation, 'reforms' that block land redistribution and an ineffective bureaucracy that has not been responsive to the urgency of completing CARPER targets.

Agrarian reform under the P-Noy government has been marginalized, even de-prioritized as the program's exit in 2014 nears. No amount of "we are on track" pronouncement by Malacañang can refute organized farmers' assessment that CARPER is failing under P-Noy's helm. The non-implementation of CARPER, unfortunately, will affect 1.1 million farmers in the country.

Since February 2012, farmers from all over the country, from different people's organizations and federations, are camped out in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform in an effort to show their discontent over the paralysis of agrarian reform implementation in the country. Their placards and streamers are not only expressive demands but also reflections of the real state of agrarian reform.