Visayas lawmakers oppose CARP extension

MANILA, Philippines - More than 30 congressmen under the Visayas bloc are opposing the proposed extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Speaking for his group, Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez said they want the government to extend production loans and other support services to farmers, instead of prolonging CARP.

“We have no more reason to prolong the program. All the big agricultural lands that have to be covered have already been covered and distributed to farmer-tillers. What’s left are small landholdings, those 10 hectares and below, which the law allows the owners to hold on to and continue to till,” he said.

He said Congress would just be wasting precious taxpayers’ money if it extends CARP and allots billions for it.

“We might as well allocate the money for support services to farmers,” he said.

He pointed out that farmer-beneficiaries in his province who have no savings and access to cheap credit were forced to turn to usurers for production loans, driving them deep in debt and eventually forcing them to sell their farm lots even if this was illegal.

“Agricultural productivity has suffered since the government divided big farming areas into small lots and distributed these to farmers who did not have the money to shoulder the cost of production,” he said.

Before the CARP law expired last June 30, agrarian reform advocates in the House of Representatives tried again to extend the program but they ran out of time.

Apparently due to lack of agricultural lands to cover, they included unoccupied portions of military reservations, land owned by state universities and colleges and undeveloped government land in their bill for distribution to farmers.