After several pronouncements and promises to assure farmers of their rights for their land, this amdinistration has shown how liars can never be trusted. They have cast the death of agrarian Reform.
Without compulsory acquisition of the land (meaning without forcing these landowners to put their amassed large tracts of land under CARP), the old feudal system remains. The hacienda system where the kapatas or tenants toil the lands while the haciendero gets 60% of the share of the harvest. Inequality remains.
The legislators have killed this social justice program-- the sole social program that would help protect the landless rural poor. Worse, House Speaker Nograles (a Mindanaoan at that), has failed its people when he failed to persuade his fellow legislators in Congress to make a speedy enactment of the pending House BIll 4077 or the CARP Extension with Reforms Bill pushed for by several NGOs, POs and even by the Church.
He even made us believe by making promises that the bill will be signed before 2008 ends. But he had shown were his loyalty was, to his fellow landowners. For them, merely extending it for six months is a victory. Shameless pigs! They wanted more debates when several studies have been presented, debates exhausted which showed how important the program is in abating social unrest in the countryside. They choose not to listen and not to act on it.
And they canceled the compulsory acquisition. As if the ongoing joint- venture agreements in the program is not enough an insult to the farmers. This administration showed their two faces-- while La Gloria acts as if she wanted the program to continue, her sons on the other hand in the Congress assured their family of their huge landholdings.
Right now, the House bIll 4077 and its counterpart in the Senate, the Senate Bill 2666 are in limbo. Meanwhile, agrarian reform extension can take the backseat while the administration and its supporters would have to find way to extend their term. Such an irony!
Without compulsory acquisition of the land (meaning without forcing these landowners to put their amassed large tracts of land under CARP), the old feudal system remains. The hacienda system where the kapatas or tenants toil the lands while the haciendero gets 60% of the share of the harvest. Inequality remains.
The legislators have killed this social justice program-- the sole social program that would help protect the landless rural poor. Worse, House Speaker Nograles (a Mindanaoan at that), has failed its people when he failed to persuade his fellow legislators in Congress to make a speedy enactment of the pending House BIll 4077 or the CARP Extension with Reforms Bill pushed for by several NGOs, POs and even by the Church.
He even made us believe by making promises that the bill will be signed before 2008 ends. But he had shown were his loyalty was, to his fellow landowners. For them, merely extending it for six months is a victory. Shameless pigs! They wanted more debates when several studies have been presented, debates exhausted which showed how important the program is in abating social unrest in the countryside. They choose not to listen and not to act on it.
And they canceled the compulsory acquisition. As if the ongoing joint- venture agreements in the program is not enough an insult to the farmers. This administration showed their two faces-- while La Gloria acts as if she wanted the program to continue, her sons on the other hand in the Congress assured their family of their huge landholdings.
Right now, the House bIll 4077 and its counterpart in the Senate, the Senate Bill 2666 are in limbo. Meanwhile, agrarian reform extension can take the backseat while the administration and its supporters would have to find way to extend their term. Such an irony!
