The Philippines has an ardent supporter in Japan in its Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program as shown in the last 20 years of its implementation, an executive of the Department of Agrarian Reform said yesterday.

“The Japanese government is very supportive of the agrarian reform program,” said Ma. Marcy Ballesteros, coordinator of the DAR-Japan International Cooperation Agency In Country Training Program.

She said that since the Philippines implemented the CARP in 1988, the Japanese government has funded P174 million worth of land reform projects in the country.

Ballesteros came to Bacolod City yesterday with JICA Assistant Resident Representative Keiko Asato for the week-long training course on the “Operation and Maintenance of Physical Infrastructures in Agrarian Reform Communities” in Negros Occidental.

CARP beyond 2008 is possible, she said. In fact, the third phase of the Agrarian Reform Infrastructure Support Project, a project funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, has already been approved for implementation.

In Negros Occidental alone, 28 ARISP projects have already been implemented.

Asato said Japan has special relations with the Philippines which makes it provide funding support to the country, including its agriculture sector.

Japan has been supporting the Philippines land reform program since it started in 1998, she said.

For this week's training in Bacolod , participated by 27 ARC stakeholders, Asato said the JICA-ICTP has involved the different sectors that take part in the operation and maintenance of Japan-funded projects in the ARCs.

It is part of the five-year program started in March 2004 and will end on March next year aimed to strengthen the farmers' and field implementers' capability to manage, operate and maintain the sustainability of these projects.

These are under the fields of enterprise development, sustainable farming and livelihood technology, financial management and resource mobilization, and marketing, and operation and maintenance of physical infrastructure.

The DAR collaborates with Department of Public Works and Highways, Bureau of Post Harvest Research and the National Irrigation Administration.*NLG

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