On February 14, 31 farmers representing various groups from Bukidnon, Negros and Davao passed thru checkpoints via passenger jeeps and staged a picket-rally to dramatize their call for President Aquino to complete and not terminate the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). They were apprehended and herded to a police vehicle and brought to the Manila Police District Headquarters in UN Avenue in Manila.

Farmers from various landholdings covered by the government’s agrarian reform program came out, marched thru sugarcane fields, ranches since February 5 until they reached Manila on February 10.

The CARPER expires in 2014 and there is still pending 1 million hectares to be distributed. The DAR, the lead agency implementing the program reported a dismal 41 percent accomplishment in land distribution in 2011.