The House Committee on Agrarian Reform will conduct a public hearing for the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program at the Lamberto Macias Sports Center in Dumaguete City at 1 p.m. today.

Peasant federation Task Force Mapalad, however, said the committee should stop wasting time and money in conducting regional consultations, and focus instead on consolidating the results of its various hearings and come out with a report.

Committee members Reps. Crispin Beltran, Edgar Valdez, Vilma Cabilao, Pablo Garcia and Ignacio Arroyo Jr. will attend the consultation, to discuss the proposal to extend the CARP as sought by House Bills 328, 743, 935, 1257, 1265, 2083, 2219, 2280, 2948, 3369 and 3059.

The CARP will end in June.

Also expected to attend are agrarian reform officials in Central Visayas, non-government organizations, landowners, farmers and people’s organizations and other stakeholders.

Jose Rodito Angeles, TFM president, said it seems that the committee is leisurely taking its time conducting regional consultations when it should be preparing the report so the proposed CARP extension can be taken up in the plenary.

Despite its alleged shortcomings, the CARP is the only remaining tool of the farmers and farm workers to pursue their rights to own land, Angeles said.

“Without CARP, the farmers and farm workers will have nothing to hold on to pursue their dream,” he added.

Meanwhile, Kid Bañas, one of the convenors of the Negros CARP Reform Movement, said the consultation “is a waste of people’s money if only to suit the interests of recalcitrant landlords who are desperate to have the CARP shelved.”

The House committee is “in effect trashing its own findings by conducting yet another hearing” despite the fact that a similar hearing had been conducted November 2006 in Iloilo City, he said.

Congressmen and landlords “should moderate their greed for land,” especially amid the latest result of the National Economic and Development Authority that showed an increase in the number of impoverished Filipinos in the country, Bañas added.*RG

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