As the country marks the 37th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program on June 10, national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad called on Congress to investigate if there is manipulation in the hectarage that remains to be acquired and distributed to farmer-beneficiaries of the CARP.
“We urge the House and Senate committees on agrarian reform to look into whether there was accidental miscalculation or intentional misreporting in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)’s balance in land acquisition and distribution (LAD). We fear that there could have been attempts to shave the figures to create the perception or understanding that LAD is already almost finished and thus it should no longer be a priority of the Marcos administration,” said Teresita Tarlac, TFM-Negros Occidental president in a statement.
“We are also calling on President Bongbong Marcos himself to do his own investigation to find out whether he is being misled into thinking that his administration is on its way to completing LAD,” she added.
Based on TFM’s computations using data from the DAR and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the total LAD accomplishment from 1988 – the start of the implementation of the CARP – to 2024 was 4,780,593 hectares or 87.5 percent of the total LAD scope of 5,463,827 ha.
The 5.4-million scope is the mandated hectarage scope to be acquired and distributed by the DAR. The figure is based on the latest available data from the PSA’s 2022 Agricultural Indicators System (AIS) report.
Subtracting the total LAD accomplishment of 4,780,593 ha from the total LAD scope of 5,463,827 ha will give a balance or hectarage of landholdings that still need to be acquired and distributed of 683,234 ha as of end of 2024.
However, last month, the DAR’s Field Operations Office (FOO) reported that the LAD balance as of end of 2024 was just 161,235.82 has. or 521,998.18 has. short of the balance based on combined data from the department and the PSA.
Amid the CARP anniversary, some 100 TFM farmers from the provinces of Negros Occidental, Batangas, and Rizal trooped to the DAR Central Office in Quezon City to decry the agency’s snail-paced LAD process and its diminutive land distribution accomplishments in the last three years of the Marcos administration.
LESS THAN 1% OF TOTAL SCOPE
From 2022 to 2024, the DAR’s yearly LAD accomplishment did not even reach 1 percent of the more than 5.4-million LAD scope. This less than 1 percent of the total LAD scope accomplishment started in 2015 during the second Aquino administration.
The token yearly LAD accomplishments from 2015 to 2024 ranging from just over 7,000 ha to just over 28,000 ha continued during the Duterte and Marcos administrations with the latter recording the smallest accomplishment in 2022 or just 0.13 percent of the total scope, according to PSA data.
“We also want to know why the DAR shrank the LAD balance to just over 160,000 has? Is it because it’s difficult to acquire and distribute the whole balance of over 683,000 has.? Or is it because this administration does not want to antagonize big and politically influential landlords and forever trap us in powerlessness and poverty?” said Tarlac.
TFM said the Marcos administration cannot just change, adjust, or drastically reduce the LAD balance, especially when its difference from LAD accomplishments does not coincide with or is far from the 5.4-million LAD scope, which is the validated and finalized scope that must completely be acquired and distributed by the government to CARP beneficiaries as part of its mandate.
Department of Justice Opinion No. 9, series of 1997 established that the CARP is a continuing program and does not end until its original scope and mandate have been completed.
PADDED?
Meanwhile, another set of data recently obtained by TFM from the DAR showed that the agency’s LAD accomplishments by the end of 2023 totaled 4,972,585.8 ha or already 91 percent of the total LAD scope of 5,463,827 ha
However, in its summation of yearly accomplishments, the DAR added land distribution accomplishments during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. covering 1972 to 1986 (70,178 ha) and in 1987 (44,081 ha) during Corazon Aquino’s presidency. These two figures, totaling 114,081 ha, were added to the total CARP LAD accomplishment of 4.97 million ha.
But there was no CARP yet in the years 1972 to 1987.
Meanwhile, TFM compared the same recent DAR data to PSA data. It observed that in at least five separate years – 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014 – the data of the department had bigger accomplishments than what was recorded by the PSA in the said same years.
The discrepancies between the LAD accomplishments recorded by the DAR and the PSA in the said same years totaled 63,685.69 ha.
“Are these discrepancies a result of a mere clerical error or was part of an attempt by the Marcos administration to pad accomplishments and pave the way for the premature end of land distribution? We need a congressional inquiry into this. The truth must come out,” said Tarlac.
Although provision of support services and land parcelization are vital CARP components, land distribution is also of equal importance, according to Tarlac.
PRE-CARP LAND GAINS INCLUDED
Also, a scan of the PSA’s AIS reports showed that it included Marcos Sr.’s pre-CARP land distribution record to CARP’s LAD accomplishments thereby reducing the land distribution balance and raising land distribution gains.
For instance, in its 2022 report, the PSA noted that, “Over the years 1972 to 2022, the cumulative accomplishment of the CARP in land distribution and registration recorded 4.85 million hectares of agricultural lands or an accomplishment rate of 88.8percent of the national revised target scope of 5.46 million hectares.”
Regarding landholdings that the DAR reported as already distributed to farmers, TFM called on the Marcos administration and Congress to also investigate whether these are really under the control and management of the CARP beneficiaries.
It cited the plight of hundreds of beneficiaries of the 4,654-hectare hacienda in Negros Occidental formerly owned by the late tycoon-politician Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. Though already CLOA (certificate of land ownership award) holders, they remain uninstalled in the land almost 30 years since they became its owners.
Also, TFM criticized the current administration for dissipating CARP gains by returning lands to former hacienderos.
An example is the 44-hectare Hacienda Bias in Brgy. Guimbalaon in Silay City, Negros Occidental that was returned by DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III to its former landowners. Through a decision he issued last year, he gave back the property at the time when it was already acquired by the government and was being readied for distribution to its farmer-beneficiaries.
Just like what happened to Hacienda Bias, a 162-hectare plantation in Brgy. Punta Mesa, Manapla was returned by Estrella to the Ledesma-controlled Levar Development Corp. on Aug. 22, 2024. The DAR chief wasted all previous efforts of the department to acquire and distribute to FBs Hacienda Bilbao when he invalidated the notice of CARP coverage that the government issued in 2014.*
