PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — THE issue of funding should be resolved first before Congress decides on the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program which expires on June 10.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. said government does not know where to get the P162 billion that the Department of Agrarian Reform says is needed “to continue and complete the CARP.”
“In fact, there must be a full accounting of the tens of billions of pesos spent for CARP since it was first implemented in 1988 in view of allegations about corruption and misuse of money,” he said.
There has been no accounting of the money allocated for CARP, including the P28 billion share from the ill-gotten Marcos bank deposits that were recovered from Switzerland, Pimentel noted.
“The administration has yet to fully respond to the allegations by farmers’ organizations that part of the recovered Marcos bank deposits had been diverted to the 2004 election campaign of President Macapagal-Arroyo,” he said.
“We have to ascertain that public funds that were appropriated for CARP should be duly accounted for. And we do not see that yet because every time CARP is in danger of extinction, they just come back to say ‘we need more money to keep CARP alive’,” he added.
“Of what use is the extension of the CARP law if there is no funding? The funding issue is very important and that is anchored on what the term just compensation means,” he said during the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines- Legislators’ Caucus which tackled the proposed extension of CARP.
He said there is an emerging consensus among legislators to pass the law to extend the CARP but the Senate, in particular, could not act speedily on the bill because “there is a lot of information that still missing.”
“I think the senators are also pragmatic in the sense that they understand that this program has to go on. But as I said, the presentation of information on CARP is not yet completed,” Pimentel said.