About 5,000 farmers will march across Negros Occidental starting today to call on Congress and the Arroyo administration to pass a law extending the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program beyond 2008 along with its land distribution component, a press release from Task Force Mapalad said.

Dubbed “Lakat-Negros: Lakbayan sang mga Mangunguma para sa Reporma sa Duta kag Katarungan (Walk-Negros: Farmers' March for Land Reform and Justice)”, the march will start from Sagay City in the North and Kabankalan City in the south and converge in Bacolod City on Jan. 31 for a general mass action, the press release said.

Jose Rodito Angeles, president of peasant federation Task Force Mapalad, said that the marchers will be joined along the way by other farmers' groups and support organizations of the coalition called Negros CARP Reform Movement.

He said Lakat Negros intends to dramatize the demands of the Negros farmers for immediate extension of CARP with land distribution.

TFM-Negros spokesperson Edna Sobrecaray said the route is symbolic as the farmers in the south will pass through the towns and cities under the fourth and fifth districts whose congressional representatives, Ignacio Arroyo and Jeffrey Ferrer, she claims, are “intent on delaying or scrapping CARP extension.”

Sobrecaray also criticized Bacolod Rep. Monico Puentevella for kow-towing to the Arroyos and opposing CARP extension.

In a statement yesterday, TFM welcomed a statement by House Speaker Jose de Venecia supporting the extension of the CARP saying it has made the farmers and farm workers hopeful that resolution of their pending land cases can be pursued under CARP.*

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