Single land agency endorsed
Dated: 08/01/2008 @ 04:02
Link: GMA News TV

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Include CARP extension bill in SONA, Arroyo urged

First Posted 20:26:00 07/25/2008
By Abigail Kwok
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines—Advocates of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) urged President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to “throw her political weight to reign in landlords” in Congress to urgently pass a bill that will extend the life of CARP.

In a press conference Friday, the Reform CARP Movement (RCM) said the passage of House Bill No. 4077 would help address countryside address and chronic food problems.

“The growing food crisis and increasing poverty needs a strategic response like a reformed CARP,” said Oca Castillo, member of a peasant group under RCM.

The group said Arroyo should urge Congress when she delivers her national address Monday to enact the measure, which seeks to extend the acquisition and distribution of agricultural lands for another five years, institute reforms and appropriate P100 billion for the program.

“Instead of resorting to band-aid solutions, Arroyo should throw her office's political weight to rein in landlords in Congress to enact the CARP extension with reform bill,” said Castillo.

RCM secretary Eugene Tecson said the deferment and non-extension of CARP have led to violence in some agricultural communities.

“There are cases of harassment in the Negros province because of the vacuum created by the non-passage of the bill that will extend CARP,” he said.

“There were farmers who were killed, allegedly by the NPA [New People’s Army rebels] but the important thing to note is that these farmers were claimants of agrarian reform,” said Tecson.

He said more than 1.9 million hectares of agricultural land were yet to be distributed, as he countered claims farmers would not be able to till the land without the landowners’ support.

“Several studies prove that land ownership gives greater incentives to farmers to boost agricultural output and income,” Tecson said.

He said what was needed was full government support when it came to providing incentives and livelihood programs to farmer-beneficiaries.

Akbayan Representative Rissa Hontiveros, one of the proponents of the bill, said she remained hopeful lawmakers would pass the measure.

“I am still hopeful,” she said, adding, “we had the number, 97 vs 82 based on straw voting, and we would maximize our mobilization to push for the passage of the bill.”

Prices of commercial rice drops in Cebu as NFA floods market with cheaper rice
News Link: www. pia.gov.ph

Cebu City (16 July) -- Prices of local varieties of commercial rice have started to drop by an average of P5 per kilo as the National Food Authority (NFA-7) started to invade the public markets with well-milled imported Vietnam rice.

Grains retailer Raymond Mahawon who runs a stall in Carbon Market, Cebu's major wet market, admitted the influx of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice from Vietnam has triggered a decline of prices of local varieties of commercial rice such as Ivory, Sunflower and Masipag.

Before the entry of the NFA commercial rice, Sunflower and Masipag used to cost P42/kilo while Ivory was priced at P40/kilo, according to Mahawon.

Today, both Sunflower and Masipag are priced at P42/kilo while Ivory is down to P35/kilo, Mahawon said.

Imported commercial rice from Vietnam and Thailand that used to cost P43/kilo and P44/kilo respectively have decreased by P3/kilo, Mahawon added.

NFA-7 information officer Edgar Diez bared they began the aggressive entry of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice from Vietnam since last week of June so consumers can have a choice of lowered-cost of commercial rice as most well-milled commercial rice of any variety costs almost P50/kilo.

The introduction of the NFA commercial rice from Vietnam at P35/kilo has induced rice retailers to lower the prices of commercial rice, Diez said.

Diez said they expect a further drop in prices of commercial rice due to the flooding of the NFA-subsidized commercial rice. Each retailer is entitled to have 50 bags of the imported Vietnam rice from the NFA-7.

NFA-subsidized regular milled rice is still priced at P18.25/kilo but is only made available at Tindahan ni Gloria (TnG) Outlets based in depressed areas. Currently, there are over 400 TnG outlets in the province while Diez said their agency is still processing the applications for accreditation of more TnG outlets and expects the outlets to increase to 500 before the month ends.

Another NFA-subsidized rice from the US at P25/kilo is also being flooded in the Institutionalized Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke (IBNGP) located in big wet markets such as in Carbon, Tabo-an and T.Padilla in Cebu City, Mandaue City, Lapu-lapu City, Lilo-an and Consolacion. This is aimed at making available to the public varieties of rice, regular and well-milled, at different costs, this is learned.

Central Visayas is allotted 3.6M bags of rice while over 2M bags have already arrived and over a million bags more containing all rice varieties from P18.25/kilo, P25/kilo to P35/kilo are expected to arrive anytime soon.

Diez further said rice millers from Luzon has promised to decrease their milling rates by P200/bag as the NFA-7 information officer claimed that rice prices would continue to drop when this happens. (PIA-Cebu/FCR)