Philippines: Rights of tenant farmers are being violated
One-hundred-twenty-one tenant farmers’ families have been subjected to various forms of harassment: forcible eviction, accusation of criminal charges and confiscation of harvests, since they have petitioned for their land to be covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in 2004.
Although initial steps were taken by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) toward land acquisition, the recent regulation, known as the DAR Administrative Order (A.O. 7 Series of 2011), retains the DAR from taking possession of the land unless pending protests or exemption applications have become final and executory. As a petition for exclusion filed by the land owner is still pending, in the face of the said regulation, the DAR is unable to proceed with any further step toward land re-distribution.
************
On March 29, some 100 farmer members of the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (SARA) – a network of national farmers’ organizations, rural women, NGOs , and agrarian reform beneficiaries – to which FIAN Philippines also belongs – called on President Aquino of the Philippines to fast track implementation of the renewed CARP – CARPer (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms) which was passed in 2009 and will end in 2014. Agrarian reform implementation has, however, been slow and, according to the official report of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), it was only able to distribute 43% of targeted land in 2011. Many landless farmers are still waiting to have land awarded to them, one example are the tenant families in Hacienda Matias.
Read FIAN’s letter to the President of the Republic of the Philippines