Farmers demanding the completion of CARPER have called on President Aquino to shower them with love on Valentine’s Day by implementing land distribution nationwide in earnest.

Farmers from Negros Occidental, Agusan del Sur, Davao, Bukidnon and Batangas have pitched camp at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) earlier this week and marched to Malacanang yesterday to present their demands.

The farmers said they wish the President in his search for a lifetime partner but added they also wished that Mr. Aquino “to give us the only thing that matters to our forefathers, ourselves, our children and our children’s children— land.”
TFM-Negros president Alberto Jayme said: “We know our rights. We are not asking more than what we deserve.”

Jayme explained that the dismal performance of DAR in land acquisition and distribution, 41 percent nationwide, 5 percent in Negros, 32 percent in Davao, 25 percent in North Bukidnon, and 9 percent in South Bukidnon in 2011, does not augur well for the success of agrarian reform.

“The farmers have nothing left to lose, they have died for the lands that Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) promised them. The President should listen,” Jayme reiterated.

He asked the President to speak now on a matter that concerns millions of farming families throughout the country.
“We are appalled by our President’s deafening silence on CARPER. We feel like he has no heart for CARPER after all of his promises,” Jayme said.

“We are no longer afraid of being imprisoned or hurt in our protest, we are more afraid of hunger that awaits us if CARPER will not be implemented,” he added.

The farmers stressed that they welcome the President’s going hammer and thongs against corruption but they are likewise pleading for him to hear them and complete the process initiated under CARPER.

“We have been denied our right to land,” they explained, “and we repose our trust in the President that he would abide by the law and push the DAR to make good on its pledge to erase the huge backlog on land distribution and compete the mandated process of distributing more than 1.03 million hectares to landless peasants until 2014.”

Lending support to the farmers is Bishop Broderick Pabillo, national director of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines-National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace (CBCP-NASSA), who said “fighting corruption is good but forgetting other issues such as poverty alleviation is bad leadership.”

In a mass he officiated in support to the farmers last Saturday, Pabillo asked the President to devote his time and energy in eliminating the roots of social conflict all over the country.

“Do not waste too much time and money in impeaching one man when a lot of your people are experiencing hunger, poverty and hopelessness,” told the president.

“The President’s attention is on the squabbles of the few, CARPER should be implemented because it will benefit more than half million long-oppressed Filipino farmers,” the prelate stressed. / 30

Shower farmers with love, complete CARPER, Aquino asked

References:
Lanie Factor- 09209512269
Kairos dela Cruz- 09274188213