CBCP asked to reconsider stand on CARP

MANILA, Philippines - A farmers’ group has asked Catholic bishops to reconsider their position on the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) told the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that the CARP is set to expire in 2014 and that the Aquino administration and the landlords are calling for the extension of what they allege is an anti-peasant law.

The KMP said the CBCP is supporting the government’s CARP, as it claimed that the program has worsened when it was amended into CARPer.

The government has distributed more public lands than those owned by landlords, the KMP told the CBCP.

“It is therefore urgent for all of us, the Filipino peasantry including our bishops, to unite and make a stand for a new, genuine and truly distributive land reform program. We hope that the CBCP and the bishops reconsider their position on the sham CARPer and to continue taking the side of the oppressed and exploited toiling peasants who have been struggling for genuine land reform,” KMP secretary general Antonio Flores said.

The KMP made their appeal in yesterday’s gathering of bishops from all over the country at the Pope Pius Center in Manila for the mid-year plenary assembly.

Flores cited “Hacienda Luisita as the symbol of CARP’s failure.”

“Hacienda Luisita is a testament to CARP’s failure in addressing landlessness, poverty, hunger, social injustice, oppression and deception in the country,” he said.

The KMP head said the continuing land monopoly and control of a few landlord families shows that the bogus CARP was not meant to break land monopoly and was instead implemented only to appease peasant unrest in the countryside and to create an illusion of land reform.

Flores said what the Departments of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) distributed were public lands and not the lands of landlords.

“The government only acted as a landlord, making farmers pay for these public lands,” the KMP said.