BY RAYMART ESCOPEL
ILOILO City – The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was a success, insisted Iloilo Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer (PARO) Enrique Paderes.
Those saying CARP was a failure were cause-oriented groups lobbying for House Bill 252 or the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB), he said.
From what he had gathered, Paderes said, GARB pushed for “zero retention” of land, thus akin to the total confiscation of land from the landed.
From the point of view of those who have benefited from CARP, the program was good, said Paderes.
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) records showed that in the province of Iloilo, the issuance of Notice of Coverage for compulsory acquisition of land had been completed.
As of May 31, DAR in Iloilo already distributed a total of 66,866 hectares to 45,150 Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs), with an average land size of 1.48 hectares per beneficiary.
However, records also revealed that DAR-Iloilo still has a total balance of 16,896 hectares for distribution before 2016.
With that, Paderes said, that there is a need to extend CARP.
“We don’t have the full control of the program. We are only the lead agency but the major inputs towards distribution are also coming from various entities. They have their own protocol, guidelines and systems,” Paderes explained the delay.
He expressed confidence that the remaining hectares would all be distributed.
“With our commitment, additional technical manpower and implementing guidelines on entitled private agricultural lands, we hope to finish the distribution of the remaining balances,” Paderes said.
The extension of CARP expired on Monday, but Paderes said they will still continue with the distribution of land.
This year, DAR targets to distribute a total of 4,959 hectares to some 3,000 ARBs./PN
