Nothing was surprising about the discovery of the Commission on Audit (COA) that the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) under Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has been working at cross-purposes with the spirit and letter of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and delaying the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) process that is at the heart of the social justice program.
For sure, the 40,000-hectare Yulo King Ranch in Coron and Busuanga, Palawan has not been distributed to the indigenous people of the island like the 10,821-hectare Bugsuk Island, which suddenly became no longer arable despite its being the site of the coconut seedling farm of the late businessman and Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco. Danding’s mechanic, now the head honcho of the San Miguel Corp. (SMC), will now control the island, use its airstrip, and profit from the “eco-tourism venture” on the island.
COA, howled Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairman and Makabayan senatorial bet Danilo Ramos, has betrayed landless tenants. “The Marcos Jr. administration’s epic failure to address the fundamental problems of land monopoly and rampant land disputes underscores its neglect of farmers’ rights and welfare,” he argued. Under Marcos Jr., DAR is perpetuating landlessness and agrarian injustice by giving land to ineligible beneficiaries and distributing excess land to those who do not deserve it. DAR has been a laggard in distributing state-owned lands under Executive Order No. 75. Last year, only 2,000 hectares of such lands were distributed to farmers.
Ramos stressed that from the time Presidential Decree No. 27 was issued until this very day, it appears that the state has never been serious about seeing genuine agrarian reform succeed. As far as the LAD is concerned, Ramos explained, the worst accomplishment rates were notched by three presidents, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and Jr. and Rodrigo Duterte, DAR records confirm. All three of them vowed to eliminate landlessness and bring the social justice program to fruition. They all failed. Big on words, puny in deed.
In its audit report, COA exposed brazen irregularities in DAR’s implementation of CARP. Unqualified individuals, including minors, retired police officers, and non-residents, were granted land while others were generously gifted with land more than the legal limit of 3 hectares. These actions deprived legitimate farmer-beneficiaries of access to land. In the case of the Roxas haciendas in Batangas, the farmers were scammed, with more than 3,000 hectares of land divided equally between the landlords and the farmers, who were thrown into barren land. In contrast, the landlords controlled parcels with an adequate water and electricity supply.
Ramos noted that DAR has never met its LAD targets. In 2022, only 32.94% of targeted lands for CLOA registration were achieved, despite utilizing 97.94% of its ₱2.613 billion budget. “This government’s inutility and complicity in perpetuating landlessness are unforgivable,” Ramos added. “It is high time for DAR and Marcos Jr. to be held accountable for their never-ending failures.” He also called for an investigation into DAR’s irregular land distribution including the implementation of the World Bank-funded Support to Parcelization of Individual Land Titles (SPLIT) program that supposedly aims to improve the farmers’ much-needed land tenure. In Iloilo, an irrigated area ended up being classified as non-agricultural, with control passing to a Villar company. The Villars also control more than 60 water districts nationwide, giving them unrestricted management of a vital resource.
The Villars have also championed what is purported to be a rational land use plan nationwide that allows farmers to dispatch with CARP land, hock it, and combine it with other properties to establish plantations. The Villars are also into the memorial parks, converting what would otherwise be cultivated land into cemeteries. Within the DAR, there have been clashes between national officials and those in the regional and provincial offices on the issue of LAD, with lower-level officials insisting they have to resolve disqualification and conversion cases before proceeding to the conduct of surveys and the distribution of the Certificates of Landownership Awards (CLOAs.) This, is despite the policy that the LAD must proceed despite the myriad cases lodged to delay the CARP.
There have been no exact figures as to how large are the awarded lands that remain unproductive, or those repurposed for non-agricultural use and magically transformed into commercial spaces and residential areas. Ramos disclosed that in several regions, minors were listed as beneficiaries, like in Zamboanga Sibugay, and awarded lands that have either been sold or converted for other uses. In Ilocos Sur and Pangasinan, non-tillers and even overseas workers were given agricultural lands. In Iloilo and Leyte, some beneficiaries were unaware of the location of the lands awarded to them. Some of them were right smack in subdivisions and could not be cultivated.
