WHILE President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. was generally credited for the country’s agrarian reform program because of his martial law-era Presidential Decree No. 1 declaring the entire country under the agrarian reform program, it isn’t true that he started the program.
Previous presidents like President Diosdado Macapagal institutionalized the idea of giving land to the landless, which was also a favorite mantra of several presidents before him, like Ramon Magsaysay and Elpidio Quirino.
Marcos may have pushed the agrarian reform program under his militarist, strong-arm rule, still, the program was unfinished when Corazon Aquino was swept into power in 1986.
President Cory saw the opportunity to further endear herself to the masses that she made the agrarian reform program the centerpiece of her administration. All funds and assets that could be recovered then from the billions that Marcos and his cronies stashed here and abroad were allocated by law to the agrarian reform program.
‘“… the emancipation of farmers does not end with the receipt of titles declaring ownership of the land they are already tilling.”’
Thirty-seven years after the elder Marcos and his family left Malacañang, the agrarian reform program remains an unfinished dream. His son, incumbent President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., said the government’s agrarian reform program, which he called an “unfinished battle” of his late father, would be finished before the end of his term in 2028.
Speaking during the distribution of land titles to agrarian reform beneficiaries in Agusan del Sur last week, the President also gave assurance the government would look for permanent solutions to agrarian issues.
“Agrarian reform remains an unrealized dream because the emancipation of farmers does not end with the receipt of titles declaring ownership of the land they are already tilling,” the President said. “They must be unshackled from debt, freed from high cost of inputs and relieved of constraints that impoverish them.”
Bongbong noted that the Department of Agrarian Reform distributed over 90,000 land titles last year, almost double the original target of 50,000 titles, yet he still had to admit he aspires to finish the distribution of land under the agrarian reform program “before my term ends.”
Marcos said the agrarian reform program was initiated by his father along with former Agrarian Reform secretary Conrado Estrella Sr., grandfather of incumbent Secretary Conrado Estrella III. ”Our ancestors will haunt us if we don’t finish what they started,” the President said.
Marcos told the farmers they can rescue themselves from poverty if they can be freed from age-old debts, are given subsidies for the cost of farm inputs such as fertilizers, seeds, agricultural machinery and post-harvest facilities, not to mention the use of proper modern technology in farming.
Rice farmers that we talked to say they do not need government dole-out from the Rice Tariffication Law or from any other source of public funds, if only the government can increase the buying price of palay (unmilled rice) and temper its policy to import the commodity, which erodes the growth of agriculture in the long run.
The President is right when he said that farmers need more than the land titles that the DAR is distributing, but these needs are not for Agriculture officials to exclusively identify because direct consultations with those who plant themselves are most imperative.
