Pimentel sees passage of bill amending CARP this week

Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today expressed optimism that the Senate will be able to pass this week the bill extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by five years, allocating Pl47 billion and instituting reforms in the acquisition and distribution of lands and strengthening support services.

Pimentel noted that the bill was subjected to committee amendments on the floor last week and is due for individual amendments before being approved on second reading either Tuesday or Wednesday.

He said he expects the House of Representatives will also expedite the deliberations and passage of the bill, noting that its technical working group has already come up with its recommendations before it begins plenary debate on the measure this week.

"It is hoped that this amendatory piece of legislation on agrarian reform that will come out of the legislative mill would deliver the social justice to the tenant farmers and provide the foundation for a just and lasting peace of the countryside where tens of thousands of tenant farmers and millions of their dependents reside," the minority leader said.

Pimentel said Congress must approve the final version of the bill before it adjourns on June 5 so that it will be signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo before the six-month extension of CARP under Joint Resolution l9, expires on June 30 this year.

He said the Senate and House should pass their respective versions of the bill as early as possible to give sufficient time for reconciling the conflicting provisions in the bicameral conference committee prior to their ratification by both chambers. But if the House will adopt the Senate version, he said that would be a better course of action since there will be no need for a bilateral panel discussion of the measure.

Stressing that time is of the essence, Pimentel said the enactment of the measure has long been awaited by more than a million legitimate agrarian reform beneficiaries who will be entitled to a parcel of land. He observed that many of these farmers have staged a series of marches, demonstrations and even hunger strike to call the attention of Malacañang and Congress to their plight and to pressure them on the approval of the CARP law amendments.

"I am very apprehensive that if the passage of this urgent legislation is delayed further, trouble may break out. The farmers have waited long enough and they are feeling desperate," he said.

The senator from Mindanao said this is the reason why the Catholic bishops have gone out of their way to lobby with Congress for the approval of the measure.

Pimentel said he was told that Sen. Joker Arroyo is set to introduce amendments to the CARP law that will strengthen the safeguards against the misuse of agrarian reform funds and other irregularities.

"Certainly, the handlers of the billions of the people's money that will be poured into the agrarian reform program in its extended life to acquire land and for other related services, should be forewarned that they will be strictly held accountable for the proper use of the money and that any misuse of it would make them liable in criminal law," he said.

Pimentel commended his colleagues for their stand in supporting the restoration of compulsory land acquisition that is an essential component of the original agrarian reform law.

"I support the extension of the authentic agrarian reform law with those provisos because without them, our country could be put at risk of a violent upheaval the likes of which we have so far been spared by the Grace of the Almighty," he said.