A SENIOR House leader warned Sunday that if Congress fails to extend the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) before it expires on June 10, 2008, it would virtually kill CARP in violation of the Constitution.

Lakas Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay, chairman of the House appropriations committee, said that since LAD is central to the CARP, Congress has to extend LAD to comply with Section 4 of Article VIII of the Constitution, which says that the “State shall, by law, undertake an agrarian-reform program founded on the right of farmers and regular farmworkers who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till” and, likewise, undertake the “just distribution of all agricultural lands.”

Lagman said that there is still a balance nationwide of 1,858,792 hectares of agricultural lands for acquisition and distribution during the five-year extension period proposed in House Bill 4077.

“The congenital loopholes in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law [CARL], as well as the flaws in the implementation of CARP, must not be used to deter extension and excuse noncompliance with the constitutional mandate,” said Lagman. He said that after the LAD extension is enacted, the CARL must be immediately and thoroughly revisited and the necessary reforms be effected even as the concerned agencies must be put to task for errant and deficient implementation.

THE Board of Investments (BOI) will start accepting applications for government incentives under the new 2008 Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) today, confident that it will be able to publish the specific guidelines within the week.

THE World Bank (WB) Group will allot an additional $6 billion in its next fiscal year to increase its support for global agriculture and food and will launch risk-management tools, as well as crop insurance for poor countries and small holders in developing economies.

A SENIOR House leader warned Sunday that if Congress fails to extend the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) before it expires on June 10, 2008, it would virtually kill CARP in violation of the Constitution.

PRODUCERS of processed meat such as corned beef, hot dogs and luncheon meat, face the possibility of having to pay more for imported buffalo meat due to a tightness in international supply.

ALTHOUGH endowed with the natural resources to become a top tourism spot in the region, Puerto Princesa City in Palawan could not go on a promotions campaign abroad because it lacks the needed infrastructure to accommodate the influx of tourists.

THE National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) has canceled over the weekend a compliance certificate it earlier gave to Platinum Group Metals Corp. (PGMC) and said it would reissue a new one to Citinickel Mines and Development Corp. on the nickel-rich Palawan mining concession, which the two firms are currently contesting.