March 9, 2020
Seeing the link between landlessness and poverty and how the latter could worsen health risks amid the coronavirus scare, 1,000 Negros Occidental tillers led by peasant women leaders have decried the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)’s insincerity to complete land distribution via the 31-year-old Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Wearing white anti-virus masks and protesting against their continued servitude and exploitation under the centuries-old hacienda system, the farmers on Monday, March 9, during Women’s Month, trooped to the DAR Provincial Office on San Sebastian Street in Dawis, Bacolod City and lashed out at the department, saying its “empty CARP promise is making their and their family’s future more hopeless and frightening.”
Coronavirus amid lingering poverty ‘virus’ in Negros
“Landlessness has made us poor and in turn, poverty has caused many of us to suffer from poor health. With a highly contagious coronavirus entering our doors amid the poverty virus lingering in Negros, the DAR has made us more vulnerable to health threats and complications,” Teresita Tarlac, president of national peasant federation Task Force Mapalad (TFM)’s Negros-Panay Chapter, said, days after the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed the local transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“While COVID-19 is not a death sentence, older adults like us, who are landless and poor and are mostly suffering from underlaying health conditions but don’t have access to adequate health care will be at higher risk of contracting and dying from the infectious disease if it worsens and spreads in our impoverished communities,” said Tarlac, noting that the Filipino farmers’ average age is 57, but among TFM farmers, many, if not most are already in their 60s.
“Among aging but still landless women farmers of Negros, health risks could also be greater because we work hard without end ̶ from households to haciendas and back to our homes again. When somebody gets sick in the family, women are the ones expected to provide health care,” the TFM leader added.
Credibility gap
In October last year, TFM compared the CARP performances of post-Marcos government administrations in terms of land acquisition and distribution (LAD) in their first three years in office and bared that the Duterte administration had the lowest average annual LAD accomplishment of 30,592 hectares or just 8 percent of the accomplishment of the Ramos administration, which was 371,006 hectares yearly.
In January this year, while in North Cotabato, President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated his vow to complete the CARP’s LAD component within his term, adding that he had directed DAR Secretary John Castriciones to fully implement the program, particularly in Negros Occidental, the province with the biggest LAD balance nationwide.
In May 2019, as a response to the chief executive’s directive to complete the distribution of agricultural landholdings to their tillers, the DAR said its target was for CARP to be LAD-free by 2022.
However, according to TFM, there remains a big credibility gap between what President Duterte promises and what the DAR does.
Low land distribution accomplishments and targets despite LAD-free promise by 2022
Tarlac cited the fact that while the President’s directive was to complete LAD and prioritize the distribution of landholdings in Negros Occidental, the DAR had kept its LAD target low.
For year 2020, data from the department showed that the agency placed its nationwide target for generation of certificates of land ownership award at only 30,153 hectares, of which 7,785 has. or 26 percent constitutes landholdings in Negros Occidental.
“The nationwide LAD balance is still about 500,000 hectares. If the DAR’s land acquisition and distribution target is only over 30,000 hectares yearly, how can the CARP be LAD-free by 2022? At 30,000 hectares yearly, it would take the DAR nearly 17 years or three more administrations after the Duterte administration before it completes land distribution nationwide,” Tarlac said.
From 2016 to 2018, or the first three years that the current administration implemented the land-to-the-tiller program, the DAR under President Duterte’s watch, was only able to distribute to farmer-beneficiaries a total of 91,776 hectares of agricultural landholdings nationwide or an annual average of 30,592 has., according to data from the DAR.
13 years more before Negros becomes LAD-free
Tarlac said that in Negros Occidental, about 100,000 hectares more remain undistributed to CARP beneficiaries.
“But if the DAR’s yearly LAD target in Negros is just nearly 7,800 hectares, it will take the agency 13 more years to end land monopoly in the province,” she said.
Computations made by TFM based on data from the DAR showed that from 2016 to 2018, the agency was only able to distribute to Negros Occidental farmer-beneficiaries of the CARP a total of 13,897 hectares or an average of 4,632 has. yearly.
“With the way things are, it is highly likely that the DAR will not be able to complete LAD within the current administration. And we don’t know if the DAR wants to fool us, the President, or itself as it reiterates that LAD-free by 2022 is a possibility,” TFM said.
“Thus, we appeal to President Duterte to take charge of LAD or make heads roll at the DAR as the agency’s current leadership is just sullying the chief executive’s credibility by paying lip service to what he wants to accomplish during his term,” it added.
Negros Occidental has highest subsistence, poverty incidence in Western Visayas
Known as the country’s bedrock of feudalism, Negros Occidental remains mired in poverty. Its 7.6 percent subsistence incidence among families is the highest among the six provinces in Region VI or in Western Visayas as of the first semester of 2018, according to data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) released on April 10, 2019.
The PSA defines subsistence incidence as the proportion of Filipinos whose incomes fall below the food threshold or the minimum income/expenditure required for a family or individual to meet basic food needs that satisfy the nutritional requirements for economically necessary and socially desirable physical activities.
Also, poverty incidence among families in Negros Occidental was highest among the provinces in Region VI at 18.5 percent during the first semester of 2018, the same PSA data showed. Poverty incidence refers to the proportion of poor Filipinos whose per capita income is not sufficient to meet their basic food and non-food needs.
Negros has lowest doctor to patient ratio in Region 6
Meanwhile, data from the DOH’s Field Health Information System (FHSIS) as of 2018 showed that among the provinces in Western Visayas, Negros Occidental had the lowest government doctor to population ratio of one physician to 57,284 people.
The ideal ratio of physician to population is one for every 20,000 people, according to the DOH. However, the national average is one government physician for every 33,909 people, according to the same data from the FHSIS. Nevertheless, the national average is much better than the doctor to population ratio in Negros Occidental.
Biggest number of anemic kids in Western Visayas recorded in Negros
Of the six provinces in Region VI, it was also in Negros Occidental where the DOH recorded the biggest number of anemic infants and children. In 2018, the FHSIS identified 514 anemic infants six to 11 months old and 1,033 anemic children aged 12 to 59 months.
Percentage of households with sanitary toilets lowest in Negros
Moreover, Negros Occidental had the lowest percentage of households with sanitary toilets, based on the 2018 FHSIS.
While only 75.86 percent of the households in Negros Occidental have sanitary toilets, the five other provinces in Region VI have much higher percentages: Aklan — 90.91 percent; Antique – 90.53; Capiz – 88.61 percent; Guimaras – 94.98 percent; and Iloilo – 89.36 percent.
The percentage of Negros Occidental households with sanitary toilets is 8 percent lower than the national average of 83.93 percent, the same data from the FHSIS showed. “We hope that the Duterte administration will be able to look beyond COVID-19, see its connection to these bigger problems, and immediately address the more fatal viruses plaguing Negros ̶ landlessness and poverty ̶ that make peasants more vulnerable not just to the coronavirus but to other public health disasters and natural and human-made calamities,” concluded TFM.
