Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
During the Sixth Anniversary of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program

[Delivered in Malacañang, Manila, June 10, 1994]

Productivity and
empowerment

THE STORY of agrarian reform in our country stretches farther back than six years. By one reckoning, the struggle to achieve a just and permanent solution to our agrarian problem is more than four decades old.

Today, I am happy to tell you that, parallel to what is now happening to our economy, we are beginning to turn things around in agrarian reform. Likewise, it is evident that international support for our agrarian reform program is seeing a significant revival of interest.

Foursquare behind agrarian reform

In mid-1993 the European Community sent a consultant team to take a look at the program under this Administration. In their report, the consultants wrote:

We find it difficult to reconcile the view of the CARP as a conservative programme and of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) as a slow-moving bureaucracy. We perceive a dynamic organisation with a clear vision and extraordinary commitment, striving to implement an agrarian reform law which, despite its shortcomings, can go a long way to achieving the redistributive justice and structural changes necessary to alleviate poverty. These improvements have clearly emerged under the Ramos Administration.

This is very gratifying indeed. At the minimum, it has restored the credibility of our agrarian reform program and greatly encouraged its implemented.

The key to this assessment of agrarian reform under my Administration is the faster distribution of lands—an indication of our firm political will to see the program through.

Our efforts have revitalized the agrarian reform program. They have resulted in a resurgence of good will and support from several countries, including South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Belgium.

In 1993 a total of P828 million was made available by foreign agencies for the program. This includes the P467 million grant provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency for the integrated Jala-jala rural development project.

Newly approved projects total P159.778 million, a part of which is the P2.8 million provided by the World Bank through the Land Bank of the Philippines for the nucleus rubber-estate project. Projects still in the pipeline of foreign funding partners total P5.7 billion.

Unleashing rural potentials

The surge of overseas backing brings home an important message: that agrarian reform is a most relevant reform measure in the Philippines.

The socioeconomic well-being we seek must be built from a base of agricultural productivity. This Government, therefore, is inextricably bound by its pact with the Filipino people to complete agrarian reform by the end of its term.

Let me make it clear, then, that my Administration is committed to agrarian reform. This commitment derives its mandate from Republic Act 6657—the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

But it is not enough to have the law on our side. There must be, in addition, the political will to carry out the law There must be the foresight to pursue the broader framework of socioeconomic reforms that makes the law meaningful and effective.

Through CARP, we hope to release the untapped potential of our rural sector. We also aspire to bring about a genuine, just and lasting condition of peace and stability. This makes it possible for us to invest our energy and resources in building productive communities, rather than expending our assets on the management of insurgency and conflict, and the healing of wounds suffered therefrom.

Without a just and enduring peace, freedom and democracy are stifled and threatened. If Filipinos have made their mark on our world, it is that they are great lovers of democracy and freedom, as vividly demonstrated during those fateful days at EDSA in February 1986.

Agrarian reform and industrialization

My Administration sees agrarian reform and industrialization as equally important and intimately interrelated goals. It has never been a matter of preferring one to the other.

Some may point out: Government is pursuing a policy of liberalization and instituting a market economy. Does not an interventionist policy like agrarian reform go against these goals?

Our answer, of course, is “no.”

The explanation lies in the unique feature of the country’s industrialization strategy, as spelled out in our shared vision of “Philippines 2000.”

Ours is an industrialization strategy that is closely intertwined with agricultural development and productivity. Rather, it is premised on the modernization and democratization of the agricultural sector.

Our countryside is dominated by small and landless lowland, as well as upland, farmers. For them, a major disincentive to greater productivity is the inequitable distribution of land-ownership.

Hence the agrarian issue has been a rallying point in the Filipino farmers’ struggle since the time of our forebears. Indeed, the need for agrarian reform was a major factor that precipitated the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

There are two sides to agrarian reform. First, it gives farmers ownership of the land they till; and second, it extends support services.

These are the elements that will enhance the productivity of the farmers, their incomes and their quality of life. It is our paramount goal to transform our farmers from being merely subsistence tillers into farmer-entrepreneurs.

Once this goal is achieved, our farmers will become a major source of services, investments, raw materials, manufactured product components and provide greater impetus for our industrialization effort.

Speeding up implementation

As we recognize that growth is stimulated by investments, so we must also hold that investment should come not only from foreign sources. More important, it should come also from Filipino entrepreneurs who build upon a strong link between agriculture and industry.

Agrarian reform is a public good even if it is regulatory and interventionist. And it is necessary in order to correct social inequality in our nation.

What is unique about the current program is that it is time bound. We are mandated to complete agrarian reform by 1998.

Within the years remaining in the program, we must speed up its implementation. We no longer have the luxury of time. We have only four years to go and still have so much ground to cover. Meanwhile, our population continues to grow as available land remains constant.

Since 1972 the Government has managed to distribute a total of 2,775,635 hectares of public and private lands to former-beneficiaries. Of this, 856,755 hectares, or about 31 percent, have been acquired and distributed since July 1992, that is to say, during the Ramos Administration.

Therefore, in the two years that this Administration has been in office, it has managed to acquire and distribute the equivalent of one-third of all parcels of land distributed to farmer-beneficiaries under the program for the last 20 years. I am proud of this achievement.

More than just land distribution

Of course, land distribution is just the start. Beyond land distribution, agrarian reform means developing the capabilities of our people—especially those to whom lands have been given—so that they become more efficient and competitive agricultural producers. In so doing, we promote the productivity and competitive advantage of the agriculture sector.

Concurrently, we make use of rural labor better than the administrations did in the past. We upgrade the rural base, and, consequently, we encourage the expansion of a domestic market for services and manufactured goods.

It is crucial, therefore, that we exert all effort to remedy the present inadequacy in delivering support services to fanner-beneficiaries.

How shall we do this?

I call on all concerned Government agencies like the Department of Agrarian Reform, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Irrigation Authority, and others to work diligently together to fast-track this situation.

All should intensify their efforts to devise and carry out a comprehensive production program that becomes available to each family head the moment he becomes a farmer-beneficiary.

Similarly, our agencies should give top priority to transforming the agrarian reform communities-of which we now have some 264 nationwide-into centers of agribusiness development. The performance of each department or agency will be measured according to the quality and degree of its support to the development of these communities.

Incentives for landowners

For displaced landowners, Government is completing the set of incentive plans designed to encourage them to invest the proceeds of land sales in local, rural-based industries.

Agribusiness firms, both local and foreign, are being attracted and given incentives by the Government so that they become proactive participants of agrarian reform. We provide them with the stimulus to enter into leasehold, nucleus estate, contract-growing and other similar joint ventures with our farmer-beneficiaries.

Related to this, I call on the Government agencies to develop relevant training programs for agrarian-reform beneficiaries.

Such training should strive to reorient them to produce a steady supply of high-value agricultural products that can compete with the best in the world market. Our ultimate objective is to attain a highly productive agricultural sector based on small-farm production.

There is no doubt in my mind that the national leadership will largely complete agrarian reform by 1998. Indeed, my confidence is such that I see the need to start preparations now for what we ought to do after 1998.

Two things are particularly important.

First, the Department of Agrarian Reform should spearhead our collaboration with Congress to develop an appropriate land market for the country in the post-CARP period. This market should be deregulated and liberalized so that land becomes more easily available to the majority.

Second, we must complete and put in place our national land-use policy. Such a policy should guide conversions and allocations in a way that will maximize the return that can be realized from our limited land resources.

Anchor of our hopes

We have pinned our hopes on CARP for a better quality of life for the majority of our people, who live and seek sustenance in the countryside.

When we speak of political will to complete agrarian reform, we do not mean the Government merely complies with the law. It means Government abiding by society’s desire to wipe out poverty and build peace in our communities.

This is a process of empowerment, one that holds the promise of dramatically changing the socioeconomic life of our people in the countryside.

This is the message we want to impart: My Administration’s deep commitment to agrarian reform is our commitment to the Filipino farmers and their families who stand to benefit from the program.

It is my commitment of democratization and empowerment to a potential ten million agrarian-reform beneficiaries who, under CARP, can acquire the means—which is land—to become positive contributors to the economy.

Working together with vigor and resolve, we can make this a reality.