Joseph Ejercito

Estradas Administration
(1998- 2000)
ERAP PARA SA MAHIRAP was the battle cry that endeared
President Joseph Estrada and made him very popular during
the 1998 presidential election. With nine rivals in the 1998
presidential election, he got 10.72 million votes or 40% of the
presidential ballot, the biggest in the history of Philippine
presidential elections. With his Erap para sa
Mahirapcampaign slogan, he was brought to the presidency
a victory he attributed mainly through the votes of the
masses. The masses were ecstatic of his winning. They saw
him as their equalizer and a champion for their cause.
On the agrarian reform front, farmers, and farm leaders welcomed his
winning the presidency. His appointment of Secretary Horacio Morales
who was a former head of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction
Movement, an organization deeply involved in community organizing,
likewise gave high hopes that this administration will make a
difference in the implementation of the agrarian reform program. In
fact, a few days before they formally assumed office, they dined with a
group of farmers and farm leaders, POs and NGOs encamped in front
of the Department of Agrarian Reform Office that were clamoring for a
genuine agrarian reform program.
When President Estrada finally assumed the leadership of the
country, he inherited an agrarian reform program that had just
completed its first ten years of implementation and an array of
challenges, as lands left for acquisition and distribution are largely
contentious private agricultural lands. There were also the usual
issues on landowner resistance, budgetary constraints, land
conversion and other operational problems. Because of these, his
administration mapped out big plans for the agrarian reform
program.
It committed itself to complete distribution of agricultural lands by 2004. By this
year, they hoped to have finished land acquisition and distribution and at the
same time have provided support services to 75% of all agrarian reform
beneficiaries, which will total about 5 million. With DAR as implementing
agency, the CARP had been enhanced to make greater impact on the lives of
small farming communities and at the same time met the challenges of a
global and attained a level of sustainability.
During his administration, the Magkabalikat Para sa Kaunlarang Agraryo or
MAGSASAKA was launched. This program was designed to make farmer
beneficiaries competitive. Through the foregoing of joint ventures, the Estrada
administration drew private investment into the agrarian sector. Under this program
14 contracts were signed between farmers organizations and private corporations
involving 79 million pesos. His administration also initiated the creation of a
Farmers Trust with President Estrada signing Executive Order NO. 151 in
September 1999. This allowed the voluntary consolidation of small farm operation
into medium and large scale integrated enterprises that can access long term
capital. Together with the MAGSASAKA, the farmers trust aims to enable farmers
to gain a foothold in the global convergence strategy for Rural Development.
His administration also endorsed to Congress seven bills that would help in
the implementation of the program. President Estrada also pushed for the
passage of a bill amending the Agri-Agra law. Over two and a half years, the
Estrada administration had exerted efforts in implementing the program
through the land distribution, provision of economic, physical and support
services to farmers.