Why should Land Reform be a major election issue?

A huge part of our population still depends on agriculture for their livelihood. 75%, or three-fourths, in fact are farmers and farmworkers. And for every ten farmers, seven do not own the land they work on.

Farmers who do not have their own land have to work on the haciendas and estates of landlords, and corporate farms of foreign agribusinesses. As a consequence, they do not own the harvest even if they did all the labor. They do not even have a say on how the harvest should be divided and almost all the time, the division is unfair.

Many of our presidents have passed so-called land reform laws, the latest of which is Cory Aquino’s CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program). CARP was supposed to expire in 1998 but was extended. On the eve of CARP’s second expiration in 2008, peasant group KMP released a study which showed that from 1988 to 2008, the figure of 70% of peasants being landless did not change.

According to the KMP, the CARP contained many ‘loopholes’ which allowed landlords to either evade CARP or regain their lands from farmer-beneficiaries. One is the SDO (stock distribution option) of Hacienda Luisita notoriety. Instead of land, peasants are given shares of stock in the corporation owning the land. Land can always be planted with crops, meaning it is a steady source of income, or at least food. Stocks can only be exchanged for cash once, and most of the time, it has little or no value.

Another loophole is that the peasants have to pay for the land. This is unfair considering that in most cases, it is the sweat and blood of the peasants and their ancestors who made the land bloom in the first place. The decades of exploited labor by the farmers are more than enough payment for the land. Additionally, the landlords overvalue their land when it is being covered by CARP. The peasants have no say because only the landlord, DAR (Dept. of Agrarian Reform), and Land Bank get to determine the land value.

The KMP also criticized the CARPER (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms) which is brainchild of Akbayan and its Representative, Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel. The CARPER did not change any of the loopholes. It only added more funds for the CARP. Coincidentally, many NGOs allied with Akbayan receive CARP funds.

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Tags: 2010 elections, CARP, Chiz Escudero, GARB, Gilbert Teodoro, land reform, landlords, Liza Maza, Makabayan, Manny Villar, Noynoy Aquino, Satur Ocampo

This is an article I wrote for Philippine Online Chronicle’s Blogwatch project. I attended the press conference myself with other members of Kabataan Partylist last November 24.

The Makabayan political coalition announced last November 24 the independent senatorial candidacies of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo and Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza. The two have earlier been reported to be part of the senatorial slate of Nacionalista Party (NP) standard-bearer Sen. Manny Villar as guest candidates. The decision came days after NP announced its alliance with the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) of the Marcos family.

Ocampo, who himself is a victim of political persecution during the late Pres. Ferdinand Marcos’ implementation of Martial Law, said that it is an insult to all victims of the dictatorship to form an alliance with the KBL, a party that Ocampo claims is a moribund party. Ocampo also reminded Villar that it was KBL which obliterated the NP and and other political formations during Martial Law to become the one-party machinery of the Marcos regime.

Though Ocampo and Maza were aware of talks that Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., son of the former President, may also be part of the broad NP senatorial slate, the two agreed to be part of the same slate as long as the issues of justice and compensation to the families of victims of Martial Law and the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses were not compromised. The earlier decision of Ocampo and Maza to form an alliance with NP was also achieved after Villar allegedly committed to and agreed on several other issues that the Makabayan coalition has been campaigning for. Among these are economic reforms through national industrialization and a review of bilateral, multilateral and regional economic agreements with foreign countries, genuine agrarian reform, and the prosecution of Pres. Gloria Arroyo and her kin for their involvement in many corruption scandals.

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Tags: Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kabataan Party, Liza Maza, Makabayan, press conference, Satur Ocampo