SENATOR Robinhood “Robin” C. Padilla on Monday filed a resolution seeking an investigation into the Department of Agrarian Reform’s delivery of Agricultural Information Services.
In Senate Resolution 1016, Padilla particularly sought to look into the rights and limitations attached to the Certificate of Land Ownership Awards, and on the available government agricultural credit and financing assistance.
Padilla’s resolution sought to have the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media, which he chairs, to handle the investigation in aid of legislation.
“The government owes it to our farmers, the country’s food producers, to provide adequate and understandable information on their rights under the CARP law, as well as the available credit and financing assistance being implemented by the national government agencies to aid in the promotion of their welfare,” he said in his resolution.
“Giving our farmers access to this relevant and critical information will be beneficial in achieving the promise of the CARP law: that is, providing farmers and farmworkers with the opportunity to enhance their dignity and improve the quality of their lives through greater productivity of agricultural lands,” he added.
In his resolution, Padilla said that while the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) sought to benefit landless farmers and farm workers when it was passed in 1988, the country’s farmers remain to have the highest poverty incidence in basic sectors at 30 percent, based on 2021 figures of the Philippine Statistics Authority.
He added one of the criticisms against CARP is that the public remains “misguided, if not totally uninformed,” of the processes and procedures in implementing the law – resulting in farmers losing lands to rich landowners.
Also, he said the Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) has not been fully understood by farmer-beneficiaries.
Padilla cited the case of at least 2,000 farmers in Sitio Balubad, Barangay Anunas, Angeles City who “despite having legitimate CLOAs, were forced to relocate following the claim of a private corporation that the nature of the land being disputed is residential.”
He cited as well the issue of retention of land ownership, which prompted DAR to conduct a national validation of farmer beneficiaries to make sure agrarian reform beneficiaries properly used the land distributed. He noted awardees were forced to sell their lands because of lack of access to credit facilities or government support.
“There is a need to package information in an impactful language with the consideration that its intended end-users are not familiar with the highly technical issuances from government agencies,” Padilla said.
