God destined the earth and all it contains for all men and all peoples so that all created things would would be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity
Likewise, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Towards a Better Distribution of Land: The Challenge of Agrarian Reform, November, 1997, the Church in its social teachings assert that the concentration of landholdings in a few hands is judged a scandal that goes against God's will and plan for salvation since it deprives the majority of humankind of the fruits of the earth.
Unequal distribution of land and landlessness in the Philippines is a form of injustice as solid and as cruel as the rugged and jagged earth. This hardened form of injustice has loong been imbedded in the Philippine social matrix and has spawned social conflicts affecting not only the countryside. Poverty in the rural areas feeds rebellion. It also pushes rural folks to the cities to suffer another form of social affliction in the concrete jungle.
A genuine land reform can arrest this vicious cycle of the poor being tossed here and there, getting poorer and poorer and being continuously deprived of dignity as human beings. Genuine land reform however must not only address the needs of the landless poor, but must also protect the rights of the landowners. I have had personal encounters with farmer beneficiaries who have turned the table against the benefacors and with the aid of DAR officials, wittingly or unwittingly became the abusers themselves.
It is human heritage that power can easily corrupt its wielder. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) of the Philippines. for all its noble objectives has been open to grievous abuses largely by the landowners and to a certain extent, also by the farmer beneficiaries.
The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) under CARL is expiring by 2008. By all means, it must be extended. The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) says that there are still 1.2 million hectares of private agricultural lands that need to be distributed to the farmers.There are big tracts of land which have been placed under the operation of CARP in a manner being questioned by the farmer beneficiaries themselves as those which availed of the Stock Distribution Option, instead of land grant. It is ironic that in a majority of cases, the present land reform is one over which implementation, both the landowners and the farmers are unhappy.
Now is the chance, after the hard lessons of the past years of a failed land reform program, to design one which will finally liberate the givers from greed and the receivers from the bondage of the soil they till.It should provide an equitable distribution inspired not only by justice but also charity on the part of the law and the giver and one which can not be abused with lawlessness in the name of poverty.
3 comments:
This is good research and insights..yes comprehensive should mean also a fair shake for the farmers and the landowners.Holistic because it doesnt just include the 2 stakeholders but the others that (if inclusive) should share in the common good.The community,the local government,the consumers and support businesses etc.
yep, the landowners deserve a say too. There are a lot of hardworking landowners whos families spent decades to acquire their lands. Just parcelling it off to any tom dick and harry would be social injustice
I know of a childless old couple in my hometown who had looked after their tenants and the latters' children well. Later, thier land were transferred to the tenant. The small parcel left to the original landowner has been overtaken as well by the tenants' families when the couple became too old and infirm to attend to their land.
the tenants have totally abandoned the old couple; they don't even share with the latter the produce of the land which remained to be theirs.
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