KAKAMPI MO ANG BATAS.14 JULY 2011

KAKAMPI MO ANG BATAS.14 JULY 2011

Cong. Peping: “review land reform”

LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “…Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father…” (Philippians 2:9-11, the Holy Bible).

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CONG. PEPING: REVIEW LAND REFORM: Former Tarlac Rep. Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr. is urging a review of the land reform program of the government, saying that the current system of directly giving lands to farmers and other farm workers did not really improve farmers’ lives but actually mired them in more problems, aggravating even the country’s food shortage problem.

“I believe it is about time that our government leaders and economists review the land reform program. Is it really improving the lives of the people tilling the land? Under these conditions of land reform, will the Philippines be able to produce the food necessary to feed the Filipinos?” Cojuangco asked in a press statement furnished BATAS INTERNET TV (www.batasmedia.com).

Cong. Peping is saying that Hacienda Luisita farmers who were given the lands they were tilling before “are now worse off than they were before and many actually lost the land assigned to them because they could not pay the installment (payments)…”

Many of the farmers, after losing the lands given to them by virtue of the government’s land reform program, often had to return to the Hacienda to find work and employment---which work and employment were mercifully made available to them when Hacienda union members were not available to do the work themselves.

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“STOCK DISTRIBUTION, INSTEAD OF LAND DISTRIBUTION, IS BETTER”: “Statistics show that over 50% of land reform beneficiaries in the country are worse off after they were sold the land than when they were merely workers of the land. So where does this conclusion come from that selling them the land will make their lives better?” Cojuangco asked.

He also brushed aside insinuations that President Corazon Aquino, his sister and mother of President Benigno Aquino III, failed to implement genuine land reform. “If you read Cory’s statement, she says a genuine land reform. That is exactly what was implemented in Luisita; land to the tiller but in the form of shares of stock,” Cojuangco added.

Cong. Peping explained: “When Cory became President, she was already aware that land distribution alone did not alleviate the plight of the people tilling the land. She already was aware that there were many land reform beneficiaries that ended up being worse off and eventually losing the land they were sold through land reform…

“That is why the law passed under her administration is the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. Incidentally the shares of stock were given for free to the Luisita workers instead of the land being sold. Besides the free shares of stock, each worker was given, again for free, 240 square meter home lots,” he added.

And as to the issue on the Cojuangco family’s alleged refusal to distribute land, Cong. Peping said, “we did not refuse to distribute the land. We did distribute the land in the form of shares of stock given back to the workers, who voted to receive shares of stock instead of physical land…”

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