EDITORIAL — Condonation

The government has written off P57.557 billion in land amortizations of 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries. Last year, the agrarian reform chief had said the condonation, covering nearly 1.2 million hectares of farmlands, would not affect the country’s gross domestic product.

Republic Act 11953, the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, has formally unburdened farmers of their loan obligations. Analysts, however, have noted that RA 11953 merely acknowledged the reality of the government’s inability to collect the amortizations from farmers who have remained too impoverished to pay the loans.

The failure to make agrarian reform work has compelled many beneficiaries to sell their lands. Agrarian Reform Secretary Conrado Estrella III found it necessary to warn farmers, shortly after President Marcos signed RA 11953 yesterday, that the law prohibits beneficiaries from selling their lands for the next 10 years.

Like his predecessors, Marcos promised credit access and farm support services to make agrarian reform work. Farmers, however, have heard such promises for decades. Their inability to pay the amortizations on their farmlands is one indication that agrarian reform has failed in its main goal of emancipating the beneficiaries from poverty. Another indication is the reported steady decline in the number of Filipinos who want to engage in rice farming.

Agrarian reform has also failed to boost national rice productivity or ensure a stable supply of rice at reasonable prices. In 2019, the government decided to allow open importation of rice to stabilize supply and prices, with the tariffs going to a fund meant to support rice farmers in boosting their production.

The jury is still out on whether rice tariffication has significantly benefited farmers. In the meantime, the Marcos administration is said to be drawing up measures to overhaul the value chain in a way that will significantly raise farmers’ income. The government is also working on other ways to boost support in terms of farm inputs such as fertilizers.

The President’s father, the elder Ferdinand Marcos, had started land reform in the country in the 1970s. Corazon Aquino pursued it under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. President Marcos, in his speech upon signing RA 11953, said it was his father’s dream “to give every Filipino farmer and his or her family a life beyond mere survival; a life free from want, from hunger, or fear of the future; a life of dignity, abundance and prosperity.” Farmers are still waiting for this dream to turn into reality.