For Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda, the potential enactment of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act will be "the most important legislative accomplishment" of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s young administration. "The New Agrarian Emancipation Act condones 58.125 billion pesos of debts benefiting 654,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries and involving a total of 1.18 million hectares of awarded lands," Salceda said in a statement Thursday, March 23. "When President Marcos signs this measure, he also etches this law into what history books will later write of his administration. The New Agrarian Emancipation Act is the most important legislative accomplishment of the Marcos administration during the first session of his government’s first Congress," he said. "It has taken nearly three decades and a President with a historic mandate to pass this long overdue measure," the Bicolano said, referring to the 31 million Filipino voters who elected Marcos in May 2022. "Now, finally, we can begin to correct the most fundamental flaw of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) – placing farmers in debt without adequate services to boost land productivity," he said. The Bicolano added that he can't help but feel "vindicated" with the progress that the proposal has made under Marcos in the first part of the 19th Congress. "I have been fighting for this measure since my first term in Congress. I fought for it again during my time in the Arroyo Cabinet. I fought for it under the past administration. And now, I feel vindicated that this three-decade effort has finally come to fruition." According to Salceda, the condonation will result in productivity gains of between 28 to 38 percent for the land condoned because of better land allocation and higher access to credit and support services. "That will create gross value-added gains of as much as P54.02 billion a year for the agriculture sector. It will also unlock some P472 billion in credit for farmers, as well as boost the wealth of agrarian reform families by as much as P590 billion in total," the economist-solon said. "I thank the President, the House leadership under Speaker [Martin] Romualdez, my chairman, Rep. Solomon Chungalao, and the Secretary of Agrarian Reform, Secretary Conrad Estrella, for their trust in allowing me to champion this measure," he added.