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Abolish the CARP

June 10 was the 17th anniversary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) of the government. This program, aimed at solving the age-old agrarian problem in the Philippines, was enacted during the administration of Corazon Aquino.

Are peasant women happy after 17 years of the program’s implementation? Not at all. Amihan, the national federation of peasant women in the Philippines, is persistent in its call to abolish the CARP. Amihan asserts that the CARP failed to fulfill its promise to distribute lands to the landless peasant women and their families. Amihan Vice chairperson Zenaida Soriano explains that DAR’s record of land distribution is dismal. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) reports that it has distributed 3,368,096 hectares for the last 30 years, or an average of 112,270 hectares per year. However, the data failed to mention Emancipation Patents (EPs) and Certificate of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) which were taken back by big landlords through the DAR.

Records from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) claim that it has allocated P6.7 billion from the confiscated wealth of Marcos to fund the CARP in 2004.The Bureau of Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Development (BARBD) claims that majority of CARP’s beneficiaries are male, which is about 75% or a total of 579,986. Only 188,374 or 25% of the beneficiaries are women beneficiaries.

Despite these acclaimed developments in the CARP, peasant women ask why a significant number of peasants remain landless. In the Cordillera, CARPable lands are usually located in the lowland areas.

Such situation leaves many peasant women to be farm workers. As farm workers, they receive low wages. Based on the report of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), the average wage of women in the rural areas is P127.98 compared to the men’s daily wage, which is P142.22 or a 15% difference. In the Cordillera, wages of agricultural workers vary, where some areas get a higher pay compared to the average cited by the BAS. The point is that the wages of agricultural or farm workers is not enough to meet their family’s basic needs. A peasant woman in Mt. Province receives P120 to P150 for a day’s work. This includes free lunch.

There is no land to till. If there were, it would still be too small to produce even the food needs of a peasant family. If they have their labor hired, they still end up with low wages, where women’s wages are even lower.

A peasant woman from Kalinga, Manang Maria, laments of this reality: “We are unable to send our children to school. We get helpless if a family member gets sick. Because we are poor peasants, we are not part of GMA’s concern”.

Her statement tells of the government’s failure in addressing the problem of landlessness and the peasants call for livelihood support. But Manang Maria is happy that she is part of a peasant and women’s organization, where along with other peasants, they discuss alternatives and support systems. If such is the condition of most peasant women, the CARP has indeed failed. Apart form the land problem, peasants will continue to demand from the government a sensible agricultural program that would indeed improve agricultural production and relations. #

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