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The core Content Team our economy, industry, investing and personal finance reference
articles.
There was hardly any change which took place in the existing
relationship between the landlords and the peasants. The relationship was
not at all liberalized, but continued to be feudal in nature. Here, the
ownership of agricultural land remained concentrated in the hands of few
landlords. It was basically due to the narrow-mindedness of the landholders
who showed more interest in controlling the uses of their plots rather than
in achieving sustained increase in agricultural productivity.
When the chunks of the agricultural land were under the control of the
landowners, they put them on rent to the farmers for cultivation. Hence, the
tenancy rates in the Philippines rural areas existed and varied between 50%
to 70%. This made the landownership somewhat monopolistic in nature in
Philippines, where wealth concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful
landlords, while the peasant classes were pushed towards poverty.
However, the situation showed substantial improvements, with the passing
of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) or Republic Act No. 6657.
The Law utilized the maximum portion of the 50 billion (US$1.92 billion) fund
in initiating developmental land reform programs. Though the development
was quite slow in terms of the allocating the lands to the tillers, yet the
government was successful in allocating an aggregate of 2.56 million
hectares of land among the landless peasants.
was worth completing. How then could Fabella use it to show that CARP has
failed? Which of us misread? You judge, Reader.
Impact on Income. 1) The average values of per capita income, per capita
expenditure, and per capita net farm incomes of farmers with NO LANDS
(whether in ARCs or non-ARCs ) are SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than their
counterparts owning land. 2) The average values of the three income
categories in the other four categories of farmers (those owning land) are not
significantly different from each other. THIS SHOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF
OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL OF LAND IN DETERMINING INCOMES OF
FARMERS. (Emphasis supplied-SCM)
Impact on Poverty. In particular, ownership of land implies that the odds
that you are non-poor is at least 1.76 times to as much as 2.6 times that of
being poor.
Does that sound that the 2007 APPC study found CARP a failure? The first of
its six recommendations, in fact, was to finish the CARP scope, especially
the lands under compulsory acquisition, which are the lands that really matter
when equity and prospects for long-term growth are considered.
The 2008 update that Fabella mentions has the stated objective of providing
support to the Government of the Philippines in its thrust to improve the
welfare of the rural poor through the extension of CARP. Why would it do that
if it thinks CARP is a failure and that it is time to go?
Here are its key findings on CARPs impact on poverty: 1) Positive impact on
provincial growth (Balisacan and Fuwa, 2007) and hence on poverty indirectly;
2) But very small direct effect on poverty, especially during the last decade; 3)
Redistribution of private land has strong effect on poverty: +10 percent
accomplishment leads to +0.3 percent in rate of poverty reduction; 4)
Compulsory acquisition has strongest effect on poverty: +10 percent leads to
+0.8 percent in rate of poverty reduction; 5) Failure to target prime private
agricultural lands and slow implementation appear as causes of disappointing
progress.
The point that is being made in both studies is obviously not that it is time for
CARP to go because it has failed miserably but that progress has not been as
expected. And both studies (remember, this was written five to six years ago)
point out what has to be done. They do not recommend throwing out the baby
with the bath water, as what seems to be what the Time-To-Go advocates
want.