Senator Imee Marcos today sought an accelerated implementation of the decades-old land reform program as government still has to spend P8.36 billion for the land reform backlog of the Department of Agrarian Reform.
The agrarian reform program has so far seen the distribution of 4.8 million hectares distributed to beneficiaries and there is a backlog of 173,339 hectares, Marcos said in her privilege speech.
Marcos said her younger brother, President Marcos, is set to sign an executive order further suspending the payment upon the principal amount of farmer beneficiaries’ loans.
This moratorium, according to the lady lawmaker, would last until June 30, 2023.
Marcos said the administrative cost of land reform is absurd in that in 2020 the Land Bank spent P1.95 billion to collect a paltry sum of P542.6 million of loans from farmers.
She said the government has the funds to support farmers with services, training and even agricultural modernisation.
Senators immediately expressed their support for Imee’s privilege speech.
Senator Robin Padilla said the proposed accelerated land reform program is answer to the decades-old insurgency problem.
The Philippines, according to Padilla, has the longest communist insurgency problem in Southeast Asia.
‘’Kaya sana maisakatuparan po lahat ang pangarap na ito (I hope that this dream would become a reality0). At muli ako ay bumabati sa ating mahal na senadora galing Ilocos (I congratulate our beloved senator from Ilocos),’’ Padilla said.
Senator Francis Tolentino agreed with Padilla’s observation that the giving of land would lessen the insurgency problem while Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda stressed the need for government to extend capital and farm inputs to farmers.
Senator Ronald ‘’Bato’’ dela Rosa, a former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, agreed with the observation that giving land is one solution to the insurgency.
Dela Rosa, however, cautioned his colleagues in the Senate that land grant is one issue but not the root cause of insurgency.
Even if government is successful in its land reform program, still insurgents will find other causes because their real aim is to gain power by toppling the establish government.
Senator Raffy Tulfo said he wants the Senate to invite the powerful, ’’rich capitalists’’ who buy the lands from farmer beneficiaries.
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