Press Release
January 8, 2009

FARMERS URGED TO PRESENT AMENDMENTS TO
AGRARIAN REFORM LAW

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged land reform farmers to formulate appropriate amendments to the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) law and vowed to work for their approval by Congress during the six-month extension of the program under Joint Resolution 19.

Pimentel said that while Joint Resolution 19 was unacceptable to farmers because it calls for the suspension of compulsory land acquisition, it was passed by Congress as an "emergency remedy" to extend funding for the CARP to complete the processes of coverage, acquisition and distribution within the period from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2009.

"The Resolution was thus meant to be an emergency device by which the Department of Agrarian Reform is enabled to continue its work for the next six months while Congress would determine during that period what amendments it could introduce to the agrarian reform law," he told a forum attended by Catholic bishops, landless tillers of the soil and their allies among the non-government organizations at the Claret School in Quezon City.

In this connection, he suggested that during that six-month period, the agrarian reform beneficiaries and those who have followed the triumphs and the disasters that had attended the implementation of the agrarian reform law should formulate appropriate amendments to the CARP Law (Republic Act 6657).

"There is therefore no time to lose. The sooner the amendments are done, the better for the landless tillers who are the primary beneficiaries of the agrarian reform law," Pimentel said.

"And while I am still there in the Senate, I will back up such amendments to advance the cause of the landless tillers of the soil and the national interest."

Pimentel said that despite his reservations over Resolution 19, he voted for it because the six-month extension period gives a reprieve -- like that given to a convict sentenced to death - for the DAR to complete its unfinished business.

In the meantime, he advised the farmer beneficiaries and their NGO allies to go to the Supreme Court and challenge the Joint Resolution so that its unconstitutional features may be nullified.

Indeed, Pimentel said if the agrarian reform law is to go on, it may not make sense to prohibit the compulsory acquisition and distribution of land to the landless farmer-tillers as an act of social justice.

However, he expressed regret that he could not join the farmers in questioning Resolution 19 before the high tribunal because he voted for it.

"And to repeat, I voted for it for a very limited reason: to enable the program to survive for at least six months within which we can act to amend the agrarian reform law by a proper bill to suit and protect the interests of the landless tillers of the soil pursuant to the social justice agenda of the Constitution," Pimentel said.

The minority leader said that he had originally agreed with the proposal of Sen. Gregorio Honasan, chairman of the committee on agrarian reform, to amend the CARP law and extend its life by five years. But because there was so much resistance from the landed interests and their allies in Congress, the proposal was reduced to two years. But Pimentel said even that was not acceptable to the oppositors.

Pimentel said he then proposed to make the funding extension to cover one year but that was not accepted either as a satisfactory compromise.

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