MANILA -- Congressmen yesterday personally appealed to House leaders to include House Bill 4296 in the plenary agenda on the last days of Congress for 2014.

HB 4296 seeks the continued issuance of Notices of Coverage under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Led by Ifugao Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat, the lawmakers asked Speaker Sonny Belmonte and Senate Majority Floor Leader Neptali Gonzales II to make this a Christmas gift for landless farmers.

Joining the Baguilat in the press conference to support the Christmas appeal were Representatives Cresente Paez and Anthony Bravo of Coop- NATCCO, Noel Villanueva (Tarlac), Kaka Bag-ao (Dinagat Islands), Lennie Gerona-Robredo (Camarines Sur) Walden Bello and Ibarra Gutierrez both of AKBAYAN party-list.

“We take courage, on behalf of landless farmers in the country, to beseech our esteemed Speaker Sonny Belmonte and Majority Floor Leader Neptali Gonzales II to include HB 4296 in the plenary agenda on the last days of Congress for 2014. It would be a timely Christmas gift to farmers who still do not own lands they have tilled for years,” Baguilat said in a press conference.

This appeal comes after no progress in a dialogue of farmers and the solons with the Speaker on Nov. 19 to have the bill scheduled for second and third readings. It was certified as urgent by President Noynoy Aquino and mentioned in his 5th State of the Nation Address.

Paez, Bravo and Baguilat filed HB 4296 in April 2014,which gives the Department of Agrarian Reform renewed authority to issue NOCs and continue with land acquisition and distribution under CARP until June 30, 2016.

Bag-ao urgently appealed to Gonzales to already deliberate the pending bill on the floor today or tomorrow, before Congress takes its Christmas break starting on Thursday (Dec. 18) till Jan. 18, 2015.

Bravo said that it was not true that CARP ended last June 30, 2014 under R.A. 9700.“Only the program’s acquisition and distribution of unacquired and undistributed agricultural lands ended last June 30, 2014 as per Sec. 5 of R.A. 9700, which amended the CARP. Pending cases and proceedings for acquisition and distribution as of June 30 will proceed until finality, based on Sec. 30 of the same law.”

Robredo, Bello and Gutierrez said it is also important to pass the “twin bill” of HB 4296, which is House Bill 3745 that seeks to create an Agrarian Reform Commission to investigate circumventions in CARP implementation.*PNA

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