The signing of the New Agrarian Emancipation Act is a "defining moment" of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s first year in Malacañang.

Thus, said Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte who joined those celebrating the signing of Republic Act (RA) No.11953 on Friday, July 7.

According to the former House deputy speaker, the law will truly emancipate over a half-million farmer-beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) by condoning the decades-old debts of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

"It will provide badly-needed financial relief to more than 600,000 ARBs and their families, while at the same benefitting the country’s consumers as the higher productivity expected from these farmers’ debt condonation will eventually spell bigger harvests and cheaper rice and other food crops," he said.

Being freed from their unpaid amortizations, interests, surcharges and penalties on their CARP loans, the farmers will gain access to credit and thus be able to invest more in their croplands to improve their yields and incomes, Villafuerte said.

“RA No.11953 demonstrates President Marcos’ commitment to modernizing agriculture and boosting our farmers’ yields and  incomes, which is in keeping with his government’s agenda to achieve food security, if not self-sufficiency, and make economic growth sustainable and inclusive for all Filipinos, including those in the agriculture sector,” he further said.

Villafuerte said the condonation of farmers’ CARP debts puts flesh into a provision of RA No.11494—the “Bayanihan to Recover as One Act” or Bayanihan 2--that gave financial relief to ARBs during the state of calamity declared by then-president Rodrigo Duterte because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“President Marcos’ signing of RA No.11953 completes the genuine intent of the Congress to free our farmers from their bondage to generational poverty by condoning their CARP debts, which will gain them access to rural credit that will, in turn, let them make their lands more productive and boost their crop yields," he said.

Villafuerte, president of the National Unity Party (NUP), served as a principal author of both measures in the House of Representatives.

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by ELLSON QUISMORIO

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