DAVAO CITY—The new chief of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has been ordered to stop reacquiring lands from agrarian-reform beneficiaries who cannot regularly pay their amortization, the Anakpawis party-list said.
Ariel Casilao, an incoming Anakpawis party-list representative, said President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte gave the order to stop the reacquisition of lands given out to farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) to incoming DAR chief Rafael V. Mariano.
“This was his marching order after we briefed him of the situation of the agrarian-reform beneficiaries years after they got their lands, but without adequate and necessary government assistance,” Casilao told the BusinessMirror.
Casilao is a colleague of Mariano in the progressive Makabayan bloc in Congress. The bloc was able to get seven seats in the May 9 elections, with one more seat being contested by the Gabriela party-list over vote percentage allocation.
He said he was privy to the closed-door meeting between Duterte and the appointed Cabinet secretaries before they were introduced to the media in an evening news conference the Presidential Guest House here on Tuesday.
Mariano told the BusinessMirror that he was there to get the final word of Duterte over his appointment. The revolutionary National Democratic Front endorsed Mariano to the post following Duterte’s offer of four Cabinet posts to the Left.
Casilao said there would be no more acquisition of the remaining big landholdings “because the time frame provided for its acquisition has expired.”
Instead, Casilao presented to the president the Genuine Agrarian Reform bill he authored, which Duterte turned over to his lawyers. He hoped to get a presidential endorsement on the bill, which he said may also widen the leeway of Mariano to implement the wishes of the progressive sector.
The bill seeks to strike out the “three main defects of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform law and its successor CARPer law: the provisions on exclusion and exemption of certain lands, and the conversion of big landholdings into cash crops plantations that may earn them the exemption clause.”
“The Genuine Agrarian Reform Program [GARP] would protect the distributed lands from being sold, mortgaged or loaned. They can only be passed on to their children, under the concept of stewardship,” he added.
The Garp would also require other national agencies to help the agrarian reform beneficiaries. “The Department of Trade and Industry would be required to deal with traders on behalf of the farmers, and to ensure the farmers get the best-selling price of their products.”