What future for agrarian reform?
Started in 1988, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP) was intended to redistribute 10 million hectares to peasant families over a ten year period. 20 years later, hardly three million have been redistributed and 10 million peasants are still estimated to be without land. According to the national confederation of peasant organisations, Pakisama [2], the Sumilao peasants’ struggle perfectly reflects the failure of CARP and the level of corruption in the nation: “the peasants acquire property deeds thanks to CARP, but, because of business and political elite interests, they are continually the victims of physical and legal harassment. The political powers, supposedly mandated by the people to apply the law and promote social justice, choose instead to act as biased middlemen for foreign private enterprise, spreading luxury hotel complexes and golf courses.” Faced with the food crisis and the continual resistance of multinationals to agrarian reforms, Pakisma and the Asian F
