Peoples’ Agrarian Reform Congress in the Philippines
Twenty eight organizations of farmers join in a national congress to ensure that Agrarian reform stays alive in the Philippines
Heidelberg/Germany, Geneva/Switzerland – June 6, 2014: With less than a month left before the deadline of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in the Philippines, 18 national federations of farmers’ organizations meet today to discuss the status of the CARP and to take up unprecedented measures to ensure the Agrarian program does not die in this country.
Entitled the “Peoples’ Agrarian Reform Congress: Renewed Unities for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development”, the event aims to shore up a multisectoral support for reestablishing land reform as a key item in the national development agenda, and for arriving at a collective platform of actions and policy proposals to address the Agrarian reform impasse under President Aquino.
According to Jaime Tadeo, spokesperson of the SARA and a former 1986 Constitutional Commissioner, “this gathering of farmers’ coalitions is very important because the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), the very agency mandated to champion and protect the rights and interests of small farmers, has abjectly failed to deliver throughout the present administration”.
Time is pressing and currently only twenty-eight days remain before DAR’s window for issuing Notices-of-Coverage (NOC’s) on all private lands still targeted for redistribution. According to DAR’s official figures, more than 206,000 hectares still had to be granted NOC’s as of last February 2014.
“Hundreds of thousands of farmers are now in danger of being denied the lands that have been promised to them by President Aquino in his 2012 State of the Nation Address”, argues a national federation leader, adding that farmers can no longer place hopes on the DAR to fulfill its mandate.
The Peoples’ Agrarian Reform Congress will be held today from 9:30am onwards at the UP Asian Studies Center. Organized by twenty eight organizations, farmers are joined by labor, urban poor, women, students, academe, and the religious, civil society and other Philippine social movements in a collective effort to emphasize that Agrarian reform is not only a farmer’s but a national issue.