Adhi Prasetyo

CARP in its 12th Year: A Closer Examination of the Agrarian Reform Performance 1

Saturnino M. Borras Jr. 2 , June 2000

INTRODUCTION

Amidst gusty neoliberal winds sweeping across continents, pro-redistributive reform forces within the Philippine state and society have been trying to keep the barn lights burning for agrarian reform, so to speak. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has entered into the most trying moment in its history. It has now to address highly contentious private estates where landlord opposition to reform is greatest, while the global and national free market-oriented context is becoming more hostile to redistributive reforms, like agrarian reform.

Twelve years into its implementation, CARP accomplished, among others, the following: i) redistributed 4.84 million hectares of both private and public lands, comprising 47 per cent of the country’s total farmland and representing 60 per cent of total CARP scope; and ii) directly benefiting about 2.1 million rural poor households, that constitute roughly 41 per cent of the total peasant population. These achievements are fairly comparable to the major (non-socialist) land reforms in world history.

CARP’s partial accomplishments must neither be dismissed as insignificant, as most critics do, nor be exaggerated as fully successful, as some government officials do. These two extreme views can also be broadly categorized as “everything is wrong with CARP,” and “everything is right with CARP”, respectively. Both assessment perspectives fail to capture the actual CARP status and the political dynamics that go with it. In fact, a good evaluation is somewhere in between. Looking through the lens of widespread pessimism, today’s partial achievement is far beyond what had been earlier predicted. But viewing it from the perspective of strategic agrarian transformation, today’s accomplishment is, at best, modest. This middle-ground perspective is important so that empirically-grounded political strategies toward full and meaningful agrarian reform implementation can build on previous achievements while striving to overcome weaknesses.

This article hopes to contribute toward strengthening the middle-ground position around the ongoing agrarian reform debate and struggle. The rest of this paper is divided, unevenly, into three sections: Section 1 analyzes CARP’s targets and implementing mechanisms, Section 2 analyzes accomplishments, while Section 3 identifies key challenges.

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A. BackgroundThe activities have done in Mindanao for 15 days, started April 13, 2005 and ended April 28, 2005. The objective from this activity is to understand the complexities of agrarian reform and development in banana plantation in Mindanao. Banana plantation which we visited for exposure was on two provinces, Davao del Norte (first is Pag Asa Barangay, Kapalong Municipality, second is Tibal Og Barangay, Santo Thomas Municipality, third is Kabalona St, Puroknangka, Barangay Grido, Panabo City) and Davao Oriental (San Vicente Barangay, Banay-Banay Municipality). Field visit for exposure have done together with Community Organizing (CO) from Mindanao Farmworker Development Center (MFDC). Beside that, also studied on agrarian reform policy research with Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao (AFRIM) Inc as host organization in Davao City.

Program implementation of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform (CARP) in Mindanao area (especially on the location for exposure) have different characteristic if we compare with the other location. The difference is because there are landowner who made land donation to Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARB) but also have pre requirement to Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries to sign the memorandum of understanding on lease back scheme. The lease back scheme is an agreement between agrarian reform beneficiaries and landowner which mention that agrarian reform beneficiaries agree to lease back the land to landowner for 25 – 30 years and renewable on the same time. The agreement also gives the landowner so much other profit. The lease back scheme have been made farmers still became labor on their own land.

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A. BackgroundThe land area which occupied by Landowner, almost 100% plant by coconut. Landowner could occupied the land in big area could not separate with the Spain colonize history which gave the authority to Filipino to control the land in big area. Its also happened because Landowner claim the land and become their property. Tenancy agreement also one of the factor of Landowner. First, Tenancy agreement with the government and than Landowner claim the land, in fact they already titled the land.

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