Bobby Lagsa
Cagayan de Oro City – On March 5, 2021 during a joint meeting of the National Task Force and Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict here, President Rodrigo Duterte issued a verbal directive to Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Secretary John Castriciones to give away public lands to farmers.
“Distribute all the idle government land whether you like it or not," Duterte told a crowd at the University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (USTP).
This is not the first time that President Duterte has issued verbal orders for DAR distribute lands under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and its extension with reforms (CARPer) and on Friday, he included on his verbal order to start working on giving away all idle government-owned lands to the farmers before he steps down in 2022.
The government has a balance of nearly 500 thousand hectares of land to be distributed to the farmers with the DAR aiming to be Land Acquisition and Distributon-free by 2022.
In January 2020, while in North Cotabato, President Duterte reiterated his vow to complete the CARP’s LAD component within his term, adding that he had directed DAR Secretary John Castriciones to fully implement the program, particularly in Negros Occidental, the province with the biggest LAD balance nationwide.
In April 13, 2019 during his visit in Malaybalay City also said that he will distribute lands to the farmers, “My order to DAR I still have three years (in my term) all government land will be given to the people, that’s what I want to do,” Duterte said.
Duterte even warned multinational corporations that their land lease are considered canceled because it will be put under land reform program and ordered agrarian reform beneficiaries must be installed.
In May 2019, as a response to the chief executive’s directive to complete the distribution of agricultural landholdings to their tillers, the DAR said its target was for CARP to be LAD-free by 2022.
In August 2020, the DAR shortened the land acquisition process from to 291 to 112 days supposedly to fast-track CARP.
CARP is an counter-insurgency campaign that started with President Corazon Aquino aiming to distribute lands to peasant farmers as an incentive to do away with armed rebellion.
LIP SERVICE ONLY
However, for Task Force Mapalad (TFM), a non-government organization that works with farmers’ organization across the country in legally acquiring land from the government, it is all lip service with the Duterte administration having the lowest number of land distributed compared to other Presidents starting with President Corazon Aquino.
TFM's National Deputy Coordinator Lanie Factor chided Duterte for his lip service saying that Duterte utterly failed the people in his land distribution.
Duterte claimed being the only President who has given the most to people in terms of land distribution “Of all the presidents, I have given the most in terms of land. I am the only President who dislikes publicity,” Duterte told the crowd in USTP.
“It is all lip service as data from DAR itself showed that he has the lowest land distribution output since President Cory Aquino,” Factor said.
LOW AND UNMET LAND DISTRIBUTION TARGET, LOWEST PERFORMANCE IN CARP HISTORY
According to TFM, it is clear from the records of the DAR itself that there is a big credibility gap between what President Duterte promised and what the department does.
"While the DAR has been projecting to the media that it is doing its job, the truth is, the current administration does not only have low and unmet land distribution targets. It is also, on record, the worst CARP implementor in terms of LAD since the land-to-the-tiller program started in 1988," says Teresita Tarlac, president of TFM’s Negros-Panay Chapter.
Data from the DAR shows that in 2020, the department was only able to distribute a total of 18,789 hectares of new agricultural landholdings nationwide or nearly 40 percent short of its 30,154-hectare target for 2020 year.
“The nationwide LAD balance is still about 500,000 hectares. If the DAR’s LAD target is only over 30,000 hectares yearly, how can the CARP be LAD-free by 2022? At 30,000 hectares yearly, it would take the DAR over 15 years or three more administrations after the Duterte administration before it completes land distribution nationwide,” Tarlac said.
“Worse, missing the target means land distribution will be forever or never,” Tarlac added.
From 2016 to 2020, or during the last five years under the Duterte administration, its total LAD accomplishment nationwide was only 142,806 hectares, according to TFM's computation based on DAR data.
Compared to his predecessor President Benigno Aquino, III, from 2010 to 2015, or during the first five years of Aquino III's presidency, the DAR distributed a total of 525,151 hectares of agricultural landholdings under the CARP, or an annual average of 105,030 hectares, based on data from the DAR.
Arroyo' s first five years in office (2001 to 2005) resulted in the distribution of a total of 548,916 hectares or 109,783 hectares annually.
Even President Joseph Estrada's short-lived administration had higher land distribution record than that of Duterte government. LAD accomplishment of the Estrada administration totaling 379,905 has. (or 126,635 has. annually) from 1998 to 2000, only lasting for less than three years, was much higher than that of the Duterte administration in its nearly five years in office.
Meanwhile, President Fidel Ramos' LAD accomplishment during his fist five years in office (1992 to 1997), was the highest among the three as the DAR, under his watch, was able to distribute a total of 1,702,538 has. or an annual average of 340,570 has.
Also, the four-year LAD accomplishment of the administration of Corazon Aquino from 1988 (the start of the implementation of the CARP) to 1991, was much better than that of the current administration at 745,293 has., equivalent to a yearly average of 186,323 has.
Tarlac said that Duterte’s total LAD performance is just equivalent to a yearly average accomplishment of 28,561 hectares – the lowest ever in the history of CARP.
"We thought President Duterte's predecessor (Aquino, III), who came from a haciendero family, was the worst CARP implementor. But we were proved wrong. How come this happened when our current chief executive issued strong directives to the DAR to complete CARP before he stops down from office?" Factor said.
At the USTP gym, DAR Secretary John Castriciones stood up and then coached Duterte into saying that the DAR has already distributed some 160,000 hectares, and that supposedly, 450,000 hectares more would be given away. He also said DAR has given some 2,100 land ownership titles in Northern Mindanao on Thursday, March 4,2021.
Factor said that Castriciones reasoned that the problems of CARP is the remaining land distribution balance is that these lands are highly problematic facing difficult legal challenges.
“They are the ones declaring the problems, why they can’t give away these lands, but that’s not what the law says, (to distribute the land despite challenges)” Factor said.
This low land distribution output does not even include the high numbers of Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) holders, farmers who owned the lands who are unable to enter their lands.
These farmers are rightful owners of lands given by government, unable to enter and till their lands because landlords have taken grip on the lands they do not own and yet the government of President Duterte is unable and helpless to uphold the rights of these farmers to till their lands.
