MANILA--The Senate and the House of Representatives will organize their own technical working group that would look into the formation of a unified version of a bill that will extend the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program for another five years.
This was agreed upon by the Senate and the House members during Friday’s dialogue where the lawmakers threshed out common solution to extend the bill which expired its 20-year implementation last year.
“We will organize a technical working group for each side for the Senate and the House and we will also invite all the concerned sectors to participate in the discussion of this technical working group,” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said in a press conference. Enrile said each of the chamber will form its own technical working group which will work and attend to every important aspects of a law which they will pass before adjournment in June.
“We have already given the House members a coup of the Senate version of the bill (Senate Bill 2666),” Enrile said.
According to him, the Senate and the House have agreed to retain the compulsory acquisition in the bill which he said is a vital component of the law.
“We will ensure that there will be safeguards so that the owners of the lands which are not yet part of CARP will not be able to go around the law,” Enrile said.
Out of nine-millionhectare land under the CARP, there are only 1.8 million hectares left for distribution where the Senate proposes that lands 50 hectares and above will be the first to be compulsorily acquired before the smaller lands.
Under the Senate version, a total of P147 billion has been allocated for the extension of the CARP for another five years. “It will be used to pay the landowners,” Senator Gregorio Honasan said.
Aside from Enrile and Honasan, those present during the dialogue include House Majority Leader Arthur Defensor, Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia, Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora and Representatives Elias Bulut, Edcel Lagman, Luis Villafuerte and Ana Theresa Baraquel. Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Gerundio Madueno and director Nestor Floranda also attended the dialogue. (PNA)
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