Thirty-seven years after the bogus Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) was enacted, landlessness, land grabbing and land use conversion remain the reality for Filipino farmers. According to the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), CARP and its iterations under Marcos Jr – including the Support to Parcelization of Lands for Individual Titling, New Agrarian Emancipation Act, and BBM’s booming infrastructure and energy projects – have only deepened land monopoly and intensified peasant dispossession.

“CARP is a 37-year scam and the Marcos Jr regime is far from correcting it. In fact, the government is weaponizing it further against farmers and rural communities,” said Danilo Ramos, KMP Chairperson. “No amount of CLOA distribution, COCROM gimmicks, or pronouncements can change the fact that Marcos Jr has entrenched a more brutal, deceptive, and pro-business land ownership system.”

The peasant group notes that Marcos Jr, now a lame duck after the 2025 elections, no longer commands stable political capital and is beholden to stronger dynastic and imperialist interests. Yet the anti-peasant, anti-poor architecture his administration helped reinforce will far outlast his term.

“Walang bago sa ‘Bagong Pilipinas’ ni Marcos Jr. The land policies he continued or introduced – from CARP to SPLIT to NAEA to the Build Better More (BBM) program and EO 18 or Green Lanes for Strategic Investments – are all cut from the same neoliberal cloth. These policies are meant to dispossess, divide, and control farmers for the benefit of landlords, oligarchs, and foreign investors.”

KMP noted that under Marcos from July 2022 to January 2025, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) claims to have distributed nearly 195,000 land titles. However, 68% of these are merely SPLIT-parcelized collective CLOAs and not new lands redistributed to landless farmers. Despite massive funding, SPLIT has accomplished only 12% of its targets.

NAEA, meanwhile, functions as a debt-condonation scheme more symbolic than substantive. Of nearly 600,000 target agrarian reform beneficiaries, only 14% have received COCROM certificates as of early 2025. These documents mean little, as they are anchored on CLOAs still vulnerable to exclusion, exemption, conversion, and revocation.

“Marcos Jr tours the provinces handing out worthless papers while farmers face actual land grabs and legal battles. In reality, SPLIT and NAEA are schemes to ready lands for a so-called ‘free market’ – preparing them for sale, lease, or conversion,” said Ramos. “The goal is not to secure farmers’ rights, but to clear the path for real estate, infrastructure, and energy giants to take over CARP-covered lands.”

The latest agricultural census confirms the failure of agrarian reform. Only 28% of farm parcels are fully owned. This means that 7 to 8 out of 10 farmers remain landless. Land concentration is worsening: the biggest one percent of landowners control 20% of total farm area, while 68% of all farms are squeezed into just 13% of land. In some regions, like Negros island, the concentration is even starker.

“CARP, in all its decades of implementation, has failed to break land monopoly,” Ramos stressed. “Even the government’s own data proves what farmers have been saying for years – land is still in the hands of the few.”

Under the guise of “development,” the BBM regime’s 207 flagship infrastructure projects are fueling mass land grabs. Projects such as the Bulacan International Airport, New Clark City in Pampanga, and TARI Estate in Hacienda Luisita are displacing farmers and indigenous peoples, destroying livelihoods, and driving up land speculation for the benefit of investors.

Central Luzon, once dubbed the rice granary of the Philippines, now tops the list of regions affected by land use conversion. “Hacienda Luisita, the poster child of fake land reform, is once again under threat – this time from Marcos Jr and his corporate cronies like the Aboitiz and Ayala,” Ramos said.

KMP also flagged the growing trend of land grabbing under the banner of so-called “green” development. Marcos Jr’s EO 18 fast-tracks permits for “strategic” foreign investments. Already, P4.6 trillion worth of renewable energy projects threaten to displace tens of thousands.

Among the most alarming are the following:
The 3,500-hectare Terra Solar project in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija
The 625-hectare Pagudpud Wind Farm in Ilocos Norte
The 2,500-hectare Makilala Copper-Gold Mine in Kalinga
The 2,000-hectare floating solar project in Laguna Lake
At least 16 offshore wind farm projects threatening fisherfolk in 14 provinces

“All of these are being justified as part of the energy transition. But what kind of transition displaces farmers and fishers, destroys forests, and sells off ancestral lands to foreign capital?” Ramos asked.

As Marcos Jr and the DAR prepare to celebrate another year of CARP, KMP vows to intensify its campaign for genuine agrarian reform. The group also warned against the pending passage of laws that will worsen land liberalisation: including the 99-Year Foreign Lease Bill, the National Land Use Act (NALUA), and various “carbon pricing” and “natural capital accounting” frameworks.

“CARP has never been about justice. It’s about managing unrest while protecting the interests of the landlords, developers, and foreign investors. Marcos Jr is no different from his predecessors – in fact, he’s proving to be even worse,” Ramos concluded. “This June 10, we remind the people: land reform is not a document nor a ceremony. It is the actual return and redistribution of land to those who till it. ###