Response to the anti-peasant CARP: Agrarian revolution!

The US-Arroyo regime's move to extend the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for another five years is violative of the class interest of the peasant masses who have long been desirous of genuine land reform. The US-Arroyo regime has no other objective but to continue deceiving and oppressing the peasantry and keep on pocketing huge funds meant for CARP. In previous years, fund allocations for CARP served as one of the biggest milch cows of bureaucrat capitalists.
Like all the previous land reform programs of the reactionary state, CARP is bogus and has no real relation to agrarian reform. The fake land reform program merely served to further intensify land monopoly in the country, and allow foreigners to own land pursuant to imperialist "globalization" policies. Claims by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that 80% of agricultural lands have been distributed to the farmers is a big lie. The vast majority of peasants remain landless or land-starved and continue to be victims of feudal and semifeudal exploitation.
To evade the genuine distribution of land to the tillers, landlords devised numerous schemes in CARP's name, including the division of vast tracts of land into small parcels and so-called land redistribution to bogus beneficiaries through the Voluntary Land Transfer/Direct Payment Scheme, Leaseback/Buy- back Scheme, Crop Conversion/Land Conversion Scheme, Contract-growing Scheme, Joint Venture Scheme, Cooperative Scheme, Corporative Scheme, Stock Distribution Option Scheme and related schemes.
CARP worsened the rampant land grabbing of farmers' lands in different parts of the country. Concentration of lands in the hands of old and new landlords intensified, swelling the number of landless farmers. Landlords now control over 80% of the 13 million hectares of agricultural lands in the country, while more than 80% of peasants in the country do not have their own land to till.
Malacañang and its cabal only utilized CARP to enrich themselves. A big portion of over a hundred billion pesos allocated for CARP since 1988 merely went to the thieves in Malacañang and its so-called chief implementors.
Moreover, Arroyo and her cohorts feasted on the P27-billion fund sourced from the Marcoses' ill-gotten wealth sequestered in 2004. The sequestered funds were intended for CARP as mandated by law. The insatiable Arroyo camp is now eyeing with gusto the more than P100 billion budget for CARP's five-year extension.
The cry to end CARP is attendant to the farmers' clamor for genuine land reform. It is advocated by all revolutionary forces and democratic sectors of society.
As contribution to the democratic struggles for genuine land reform, progressive solons in Congress are pushing for the passage into law of the Genuine Agrarian Reform Program (GARP). The bill is expected to meet with stiff opposition by the Arroyo regime in connivance with the big landlords who dominate Congress.
Agrarian revolution is the revolutionary movement's key solution to widespread landlessness and land starvation in the country. Learning from the rich history of peasant struggles in the Philippines, genuine land reform will only be realized through agrarian revolution. Agrarian revolution aims to liberate the peasant masses from feudal and semifeudal exploitation and oppression.
Agrarian revolution is the principal feature of the national democratic struggle currently being waged by the armed revolutionary forces across the archipelago. Through this, the peasant majority are enjoined to take part as the main revolutionary force and in the formation of the basic alliance of the proletariat and peasantry.
In guerrilla zones and fronts across the archipelago, the revolutionary peasant masses implement various levels of the revolutionary land reform program. The minimum program being implemented on a wide scale involves the gradual reduction of land rent, the elimination of usury, wage increases for agricultural workers, attainment of just farmgate prices for agricultural products, improvement of different forms and levels of cooperation and various socio-economic, educational and cultural programs for the benefit and welfare of the peasant majority.
In areas where the armed revolutionary forces are relatively strong and the enemy forces are weak, certain components of the maximum program for land reform are already being implemented. In these areas, farmers are given rights to till for free lands that have been confiscated from despotic landlords and land grabbers, or idle or abandoned lands. This they do under the direct supervision of their agricultural cooperatives and organs of political power. This program proves to be effective and exceedingly gainful for the beneficiaries. There will be more of these cases as the revolutionary movement expands and advances and total victory becomes imminent.
As a result of advancing genuine land reform and the victories achieved therein, millions of peasants are joining revolutionary organizations and becoming active participants in revolutionary struggles. Thousands of the more advanced elements from their ranks are taking up arms and joining the people's army. With the revolutionary movement's continuous advance, agrarian revolution will spread like wildfire, gradually defeating feudal and semifeudal power in the countryside and fuelling the advance of people's war across the land.