When communists and redistributionists talk about food or farming, it’s always frightening.
Peasant groups appealed to Catholic bishops to support the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill, instead of pushing for the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
They still have peasants in the Philippines and they have ‘peasant groups’. I wonder how poor those peasant groups are?
The Anakpawis partylist and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) made the statement in response to the recent appeal to President Aquino made by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. At least 81 Catholic Church leaders have signed the appeal that says, “’give new life and glorious finish’ to the 27-year-old CARP by passing the twin measures House Bill 4296 and House Bill 4375 for the sake of Filipino farmers.”
“It is helpful that the bishops are voicing out their support for the farmers’ interests, and so we appeal that they support GARB that proposes free land distribution and the nationalization of agricultural lands, Anakpawis Representative Fernando “Ka Pando” Hicap said in a statement.
GARB not CARP. GARB is the one that nationalizes everyone’s land and then hands it out to other people. 81 ‘Catholic leaders’ support GARB but apparently not enough bishops.
The group said farmer-leaders have officially submitted to the CBCP’s 107th Plenary Assembly in July 2013, an appeal urging “the Filipino peasantry including our Bishops, to unite and make a stand for a new, genuine and truly distributive land reform program… and, pray that our beloved bishops reconsider their position on the sham CARPER and to continue taking the side of the oppressed and exploited toiling peasants who have been struggling for genuine land reform.”
In their appeal to the CBCP, the KMP called CARP as “the longest-running and most expensive agrarian reform program in the world and is not meant to address the problem of landlessness and rural poverty. Enacted on June 10, 1988 during the administration of then President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, the law was crafted to exempt Hacienda Luisita and other vast haciendas in the country from land distribution.”
So they already have a land redistribution system in the Philippines, it’s just that it only redistributes smaller farmers’ land. Rich farmers still get to keep what’s theirs. So, it’s a choice between bad and worse.
Will the bishops shift? What would Pope Francis do? Organize co-ops?