NGO to Noynoy: Link land policies to climate change

With farmers and the rural poor most vulnerable to the destructive effects of climate change, a non-government organization is asking president-apparent Sen. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III to take up new agrarian reform policies. On Sunday, Project Development Institute executive director Ria Miclat-Teves said land reform is "critically" linked to addressing the devastation caused by climate change. "The first effects of climate change are erosion, drought, destruction of crops. These result in lower production, which means lower food supply," she told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. "The basic tenet of agrarian reform is to provide land to the landless. But it doesn't mean that transfer of land to peasants and farmers would improve their lives. The government should give them support and services, economic programs, education and training so they will have skills," she said. Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Narciso Nieto earlier said existing water impounding systems and communal irrigation were not built to withstand climate change effects such as the El Niño dry spell and massive flooding during the rainy season. Teves' group is one among the organizations prodding Aquino to pursue genuine agrarian reform. On Wednesday, James Putzel of the Crisis States Research Center at the London School of Economics joined her group and the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform is calling for the redistribution of property rights through agrarian reform. Teves on Sunday said the next administration's agrarian policies should favor the poor instead of the landed elite. Putzel, who did extensive studies on Philippine land reform, echoed her sentiment. During Wednesday's press conference, Putzel said the country needs a new agri-business industry that "combines the energies of small producers, cooperatives and entrepreneurs willing to deploy new technologies and take risks." “The president-elect could demonstrate that his government represents generational change by setting an example and convincing his family to finally put the story of Hacienda Luisita behind them – change it from a story of land held in violation of successive legal efforts to redistribute it and from a story of successive protests and even killings to put down social mobilization, to a story of justice and forward looking development," Putzel said. Putzel is also the author of "A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines" which extensively probed into the Hacienda Luisita controversy. One of the controversial issues hounding Aquino is the non-distribution of 6,435 hectares of land to farmer-beneficiaries of Hacienda Luisita. The Cojuangcos of Tarlac – the family of the late President Corazon C. Aquino, who was Nonoy’s mother – have owned the land since 1958. On the campaign trail in February, the senator vowed to distribute the land to about 10,000 farmer beneficiaries by 2014. Teves said on Sunday that Aquino should fulfill his promise to prove his mettle. "The issue on Hacienda Luisita is a thorn in his administration. If he cannot settle something that exists in his own backyard, then the peasants will not trust him fully. He has to settle Luisita for it to be a model for other landholdings, and for him to prove he can address rural poverty," she said. —VS, GMANews.TV