CBCP chides ‘disturbing’ facts, realities behind CARP

MANILA, June 7, 2014 – The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Friday reminded the public of the moral and ethical dimensions of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) with only a few weeks left before it expires by June 30.

In a statement, the bishops chided the appalling realities behind the CARP, urging Filipinos to contribute in devising a more responsible system of distributing the country’s natural resources towards agricultural productivity.

“While the task of re-distribution is apparently done, the government’s efforts—in tandem with the initiatives to the private sector, particularly our Catholic laity—should go into rendering these new holdings productive,” the CBCP said in a statement signed by its president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.

“A more responsible system of allocating, distributing and applying government funds and resources towards farm productivity must be set in place coupled with people’s efforts at rendering transactions transparent and responsible officials, accountable,” it added.

Furthermore, the CBCP noted the need to enact needed legislative reforms that could “enable leases and mortgages of acquisitions towards higher levels of productivity and a rise in the living standards of farmer-beneficiaries.”

‘Disturbing’ facts

Describing the hard facts behind land reform as “disturbing,” the bishops noted that 54 percent of households among agrarian-reform beneficiaries fell below the poverty line, according to the 2011 Agrarian Reform Communities Level Development Assessment (ALDA).

They said that the distribution of land, in certain instances, does not really serve its purpose of improving the lives of farmer-beneficiaries “for it is very well possible that the beneficiaries, lacking the wherewithal and the skills render of their new holdings that were hitherto productive now unproductive.”

According to the CBCP, the need for quick money has forced some farmer-beneficiaries to use their newly-acquired property for transactions in the underground market, frustrating the very purposes of land distribution.

“In this respect, legal reform towards allowing farmer-beneficiaries to lease or mortgage their property when such contracts should hold out the promise of higher productivity for the land and higher standards of living for our farmer-beneficiaries must receive serious study,” it added.

Accounting, transparency

Unless accompanied by an uncompromisingly rigid system of accounting and transparency, the generous allocation of funds for farm inputs will only benefit corrupt individuals who have remorselessly profited from public funds, the bishops said.

For instances wherein a farmer-beneficiary regrettably chooses to abandon and leave his land unproductive, the prelates emphasized the need for a legal mechanism that will revert the land to re-distribution so it may be awarded to other farmer-beneficiaries who have the willingness and capacity to render it more productive.

The bishops also noted the problem arising from the collective issuance of 70 percent of Certificates of Land Ownership Awards.

Since it involves one million farmers and two million hectares, the legal rights of the individual beneficiaries are far from being settled, they said.

“Consigned to a state of uncertainty, this acreage cannot be productive, nor can the supposed beneficiaries enjoy the rights that the law intends them to have,” the CBCP said, noting that this is a matter for the Department of Agrarian Reform to settle with urgency and resoluteness.

Stewards of creation

“We, your pastors, must warn against every scheme that would have land that has already been distributed, gathered in the hands of those would once more amass tracts of land in contravention of the equitable purpose of land-distribution,” the prelates said.

“What this problem points to is the importance of the formation of our farmer-beneficiaries, including their Christian formation as ‘stewards’ of this world’s resources, particularly land,” they added.

The prelates vowed that the church will do its share to vigilantly “police, observe, and report on the allocation, distribution, and application of public monies and funds targeting farm productivity” through engaging the social action commission of its dioceses and other ecclesiastical jurisdictions.

“The Philippine Church must, with all haste and diligence, involve itself in the formation of our farmer-beneficiaries so that rather than devising ways of circumventing the law by alienating their holdings and contradicting the purposes of land-distribution, they may be true stewards of this world’s goods,” the CBCP said. (Jennifer M. Orillaza)