A Catholic Church-backed march of farmers and farm workers from Negros to Manila will start tomorrow the season-long campaign of a Negrense coalition seeking the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program with reforms.

Representatives of the Negros CARP Reform Movement were joined yesterday by Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra in a press conference at the Negros Press Club building to announce the campaign activities.

Rodito Angeles, president of Task Force Mapalad, a coalition member, said the campaign is mainly aimed at calling the attention of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to facilitate the approval of  the CARP extension with reforms.

The NCRM is supporting the passage of House Bill 4077 and Senate Bill 2666 before temporary CARP extension lapses in June.

NCRM spokesperson Emmanuel Alano said that, for now, the land reform program has become a “living dead” because the Joint Resolution No. 1 that extended the CARP until June 30 this year, no longer allows compulsory acquisition of lands.

“How can you call it land reform if it does not include the compulsory acquisition, which is the heart and soul of agrarian reform?” he asked.

PROTEST MARCH

About 3,000 farmers and farm workers in Negros Occidental will join the protest march called “Lakat Mag-uuma Tungo sa Makabuluhang Repormang Panakahan” or “Farmers’ March Towards Meaningful Agrarian Reform.”  

Tomorrow, the march from the south will kick off in Isabela town, the site of the controversial Arroyo-owned Hacienda Bacan, while from the north, in Cadiz City.

By Sunday, the southern contingent will have reached the Lupit Church in Bacolod City, and the northern group, the Capitol Lagoon.

At 7 a.m. on Monday, Navarra will concelebrate a mass for the marchers-farmers before the group boards a ship for Manila.

“I enjoin all our faithful, the clergy, the religious, the schools and the people of good will to offer prayers for the safety of the farmers and for the fruitfulness of their venture,” the bishop said in a circular letter.

Navarra urged the faithful who are residing along the route of the marchers to offer them gestures of welcome, and tokens of food, water, and juices.

He also asked the parish priests to lead their faithful in providing a warm welcome to the marchers, specifically in Valladolid and Victorias where they are asking that masses be celebrated before they resume their march to Bacolod.  

“Let us be generous with our prayers and acts of penance as we join our farmer-marchers in their legitimate quest that their cries are deeply embedded in the heart of our heavenly Father,” Navarra said.  

The bishop said he hopes that the cries of the marchers will also be heard and given attention by Congress and the “highest Authority of the Land” so that the agrarian reform law will be extended with the most needed component, the compulsory acquisition.*NLG

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