BEHIND THE SCENES

CARP land scams
ALFRED P. DIZON

Some officials of the Dept. of Agrarian Reform and Land Registration Authority must be disciples of Houdini who could make anything appear of disappear into thin air. You see, certificates of land ownership awards (CLOAS) have often “disappeared” and turned out later to have been converted to regular titles.

Under the law, land covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) like CLOAs cannot be sold or transferred, except to immediate family members of the beneficiary, the Land Bank of the Philippines or the local government.
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The Cordillera is no exception -- with some modifications like those lots in Barangay Samoki in Bontoc, Mountain Province which were mysteriously issued CLOA titles and “awarded” to some individuals who didn’t own the lots. This had created uproar among the locals that got some DAR officials into thinking this was serious matter and they could lose their heads over it. The DAR never made any press statement on the controversy and it is presumed the issue was “settled.”

Now, reports have it that members of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army are “working” with DAR officials in the region to have ancestral lands issued CLOA titles under their names in Baguio City like at the Dairy Farm area. Just talk to some disgruntled DAR workers and you will get the whole picture.
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Over the years, implementation of the CARP had been a source of graft and corruption among government officials tasked to implement it. The purported vision then of the Cory Administration was to give land to the landless through the CARP but it takes example for people to follow.

I often pass though Central Luzon and until now, people are saying Hacienda Luisita owned by Cory and kamag-anak is still an object of dispute because until now, the land hadn’t been distributed to farmers. Some months ago, military men were reported as having killed some farmers due to the dispute.
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Last week, a real estate broker exposed what he claimed was a multibillion-peso scam involving the sale of prime rice-producing lands covered by the CARP in Pampanga, the home-province of President Arroyo, which resulted in the demise of what was once the rice granary in Central Luzon.
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Realtor Loui Hipolito told newsmen in a press briefing in a Quezon City restaurant last week that the DAR instigated the illegal sale of hectares of rice land in Pampanga and that recommendations have been made for the filing of criminal charges against those involved, including high government officials.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg. The sale of CARP land was massive and could involve thousands of hectares all over the country,” he said.

Hipolito said at least 500 hectares or 80 percent of once rice-producing land in the Pampanga town of Mexico, mostly covered by CARP, are now titled to big subdivisions.

He said he accidentally discovered the anomaly when he conducted a research on land titles coursed to him for the conversion of agricultural land into high-end housing projects.

Hipolito said he was able to facilitate the land conversion, but when he traced the origin of the land titles, he said he discovered that the areas covered were actually lands purchased by the Land Bank of the Philippines to be distributed to CARP beneficiaries.
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He cited cases in Mexico town where CARP beneficiaries, with the alleged connivance of officials of the Land Registration Authority, were able to convert their CLOAs issued by the DAR to regular titles, paving the way for the sale of their lands to a big developer.

Hipolito alleged that fake documents supposedly from national government agencies were used to construct subdivisions that have sprouted in Mexico town, the City of San Fernando and neighboring areas.

A terminal report made by a DAR investigating team said the sale of CARP lands in Mexico town had no clearance from the department and that CARP beneficiaries were merely persuaded to sell their lands.

The DAR report recommended the cancellation of the land titles issued to the realty firms, but Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Panganda­man has reportedly yet to act on the move, a month before CARP expires this June. What will happen now with the expiration of CARP?
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In Narvacan, Ilocos Sur last week, Pangandaman said he was optimistic that the CARP will be extended for five years. Earlier, it was reported that the House committee on agrarian reform had endorsed a bill extending the implementation of CARP for five years.

Pangandaman said there’s a need for the extension of CARP to enable the DAR to hit its target of 5.3 million hectares for land acquisition and land distribution. "Talagang kailangan pa ang CARP because we are looking at more or less 1.3 million hectares to be acquired and distributed to the landless. Ito’y balanse namin sa 5.3 million hectares because we had already distributed some four million hectares," Pangandaman told newsmen.

"We need another five years or 10 years for the extension of CARP to accomplish our balance and we need to render more support services to individual farmers in order for them to sustain the productivity of the land that we had distributed."

He added support-services program for the agrarian reform beneficiaries include construction of irrigation facilities and farm-to-market roads. Pangandaman said the extension of CARP is one of the priority bills that congressmen and President Arroyo had approved during the recent meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council in Malacañang.
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Then President Ferdinand Marcos launched the agrarian reform program when he issued Presidential Decree No. 27 which ordered distribution of rice and corn lands to landless farmers. The law was later amended to include sugar land.

In 1988, Republic Act No. 6675, otherwise known as CARP Law, was enacted, mandating the implementation of the agrarian reform program for 10 years.
But DAR failed to meet the deadline in 1998. Later, the DAR sought again the extension of CARP. For the second time, the program was extended until 2008 through Republic Act No. 8532, but this law will expire on June 30.
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This Banana Republic has a lot of land laws that boggle the mind. Houdini wouldn’t have been able to decipher these like Presidential Decree 705 which mandates that all lands 75 percent in slope and above are public lands and considered government property. If you take this into account, then most people of the Cordillera are squatters in their own lands.

With conflicting land laws like the CLOA, it is no wonder there are enterprising individuals like government officials who make use of their position, influence or riches to illegally accumulate more lands.

Greed knows no bounds. Greed for lands is what kankanaeys and Ilocanos call agum or buakaw. The agum even among indigenous families and clans over ancestral lands have been a source of discord but that is another story.
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One can’t take one’s riches or lands to the grave, a friend once told me. When asked by a realtor why he was not buying lands, he answered: “No need, I only need six feet when I die.”