Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas (Facebook)
Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas has challenged President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to prioritize the creation of a new and genuinely redistributive agrarian reform program. This, even as the Makabayan solon hailed Marcos for signing into law Republic Act (RA) No.11953 or the New Agrarian Emancipation Act. Brosas, an author of the measure, was among the officials who witnessed the signing on Friday, July 7 in Malacañang. "Gabriela Women's Party is one of the principal authors of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act in Congress and for years, actively pushed for Genuine Agrarian Reform," read a subsequent statement from the group. Despite the enactment of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, Brosas underscores that there is still no new land reform program under Marcos. She said the land acquisition and distribution component of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has long expired, and since 2014, no new lands have been covered for land acquisition and distribution. The Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB), one of Makabayan bloc's priority legislation, has been stuck in Congress for almost 16 years, Gabriela said. Brosas said that agriculture has been paralyzed and impaired by years of liberalization, privatization, and deregulation, and is considered as the most underdeveloped sector of our economy. It is estimated that seven out of ten Filipino farmers do not own the land they till. "The Department of Agrarian Reform, in collaboration with the World Bank, has a program called Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling (SPLIT). However, the program aims to convert collective land titles into individual land titles, which will facilitate agribusiness ventures, land conversion, and foreign monopoly over land," she claimed. The New Agrarian Emancipation Act condones the P57.56 billion total debt of 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) tilling 1.173 million hectares of land. "It has been proven in history that [ARBs] cannot fully compensate for the total value of the land awarded to them under the [CARP] or RA No.6657. This is why Gabriela Women's Party filed House Bill (HB) 5206 which seeks to write off all land amortizations and issue a Title of Full Emancipation for all farmer-beneficiaries," Brosas said.