Arroyo’s ‘failed leadership’ may kill CARP--professor

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Arroyo’s ‘failed leadership’ may kill CARP--professor

By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 19:51:00 06/16/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Speaker Prospero Nograles should be blamed for Congress' failure to pass a bill extending a key component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), University of the Philippines professor Walden Bello said on Monday.Bello said the House of Representatives could have passed the bill had Arroyo and Nograles vigorously lobbied lawmakers to vote for its approval.
"If the President had moved to aggressively line up people for CARP, and if the Speaker had done the same thing -- more energetic leadership, it would have passed,'' he said in an interview.
"My sense is there's a failure of leadership here,'' he said in an interview.

Both the House and the Senate adjourned last week without passing their versions of the proposed law extending the land acquisition and distribution (LAD) component of CARP by five years from June 10.

The House decided to defer vote on the bill and to merely adopt a joint resolution with the Senate maintaining the LAD until December 31. The Senate failed to even report out its hearings on the bill.

"We could have won CARP had the President and the Speaker shown a little bit more of energy, and less of an attitude of compromising with the landlord bloc,'' Bello said.

The Department of Agrarian Reform has to distribute at least 1.1 million hectares of agricultural land under the LAD, but lawmakers argued that it could go ahead with the program without the bill.

Bello, a senior analyst of the Focus on The Global South, said he expected lawmakers to eventually deal "a procedural killing'' to the CARP after resuming sessions in late July.

He said that by deferring the vote, lawmakers were hoping to get a "critical mass'' from colleagues "who are indifferent to CARP'' to further delay the vote and approval of the measure between July and December.

"All I know is that the purpose is to give CARP a procedural death. The idea is to be able to prolong this process and get a critical mass to kill CARP,'' he said.

But he added: "CARP will die a procedural death unless they see that the alternative to this is tremendous dissent in the countryside.''
Lengthy interpellation and questions on quorum delayed deliberations on the House version, leaving little time for its approval on second and third reading prior to last week's adjournment, according to Bello.

During the recess, Bello advised pro-agrarian reform advocates to meet with their congressional representatives to coax them to put the CARP bill on the agenda when they resume sessions, he said.

"The important thing is for pro-CARP people's organizations is to make sure that Congress people learn of their frustration during this recess, so that by the time they come back, they will act on it immediately,'' he said.

Bello also said he was "upset'' with some lawmakers for misquoting him to justify their opposition to the extension bill.
He said that Cebu Representative Pablo Garcia quoted him as having written that CARP failed.

"Yes, CARP failed. But we don't need to kill it. We only have to plug its loopholes. That's what I wrote,'' he said

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