| EDITORIAL As the anniversary of RA 6657 or the “Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program” (CARP) approaches, it is good look back to the calls from PCP 11. The PCP 11 document in 1991, stated “AgrarianReform is still the one big issues that touches our rural poor most directly. And hard opposition to it on the part of the landed class, Catholics most of them, is the one big reason for its continuing failure. If indeed we are serious about all we say about our preferential love for the poor, the beginnings of real reformation in our patterns of use and ownership of land should be made, the beginning too of the solution to the scandalous problem of rural poverty” (391). The key here is “if we are serious”. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo replaced Estrada promising reforms and a pro-poor program. Yet what we are experiencing in the rural sector is an increase in land grabbing by big landlords, and increasing land use conversion; continuing exploitation of farm workers; criminalization of land cases; collaboration with former Marcos cronies such as Danding Cojuangco in regards to the Coco-Levy scam; as well as increasing militarization in the countryside resulting in massive displacements, harassment and summary executions of peasants and peasant leaders. We see examples of this in the case of the Mamburo 6, the Cassava plantations being pushed by Danding Cojuangco, the situation of the sugar workers. The government is not serious about land reform. PCP 11 reflected the words of Pope John Paul 11 in “Solicitudo Reis” that “positive signs of the times are the organizing and public demonstrations on the social scene to present rights in the face of inefficiency or corruption of public officials” (39). The document also echoed the lament of John Paul 11 in his letter “Centessimus Annus,” that “many who cultivate the land are excluded from ownership and reduced to quasi-servitude” (33) and called on church people to “denounce this with absolute clarity although it wont please everyone” (61). As church people we are called to empower the powerless to act for themselves, and to stand in solidarity with them. This call is most urgent today as the farmers continue to struggle for genuine land reform in the face of increasing repression.
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