Kabataan Partylist News Release on Right of Reply Bill
June 5, 2009
Not for media only
Right of Reply will affect bloggers, texters, iPod users, says solon
Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino today raised the alarm on how the Right of Reply Bill would not only affect stifle freedom but could lead to Internet censorship and affect freedom of speech and expression of bloggers, texters, and even iPod users.
In his interpellation of the Right of Reply Bill, Palatino got sponsor Cong. Bienvenido Abante to admit that HB 3306 would also cover websites, emails, Internet social networking sites and other electronic devices in its scope.
Section 1 of HB 3306 (Right of Reply) states, “All persons natural or judicial who are accused directly or indirectly of committing, having committed, or are criticized by innuendo, suggestion or rumor for any lapse in behavior in public or private life shall have the right to reply to charges or criticisms published in newspapers, magazines, newsletters or publications circulated commercially or for free, or aired or broadcast over radio, television, websites or through any electronic device.”
“The bill, therefore, would not only affect media outfits and journalists but also all website owners, website masters, email account holders and other netizens who are not necessarily media practitioners,” Palatino said.
He added, “This would affect the more than five million bloggers and millions more of Internet users in the country. My fear is that when this bill comes to law, it will be used to regulate the content of the Internet. When we are checking our emails, when we open our Friendster or Facebook accounts, we are checking our websites. Does this mean that we will be compelled to moderate, modify or edit our personal websites? Is this not Internet censorship and suppression of freedom of speech and expression?”
“Does this mean that whenever a criticism is published in these venues a person can use the Right of Reply to compel a blogger or moderator of a social networking site to publish a space or a reply for that person? Or when an individual decides to copy or re-post an article from a news website in his or her personal blog, and in the future the said article becomes a subject of this Right of Reply, will he or she be sanctioned or fined also?”
Palatino also questioned the inclusion of ‘any electronic device’ in the bill. “Again, this would affect more than 60 million mobile phone users and iPod owners in the country. This is totally out of bounds and not to mention virtually impossible to apply. Kung may ka-text ako at nagreklamo siya sa text ko, will I be compelled to publish his reply in my mobile phone? I simply find it incredible and idiotic.”
Same principle applies, Palatino said, to iPod users and other owners of electronic devices.
Palatino said that he would oppose the Right of Reply Bill on grounds that it subdues freedom of the press and the general public’s freedom of speech and expression. He also said that he is not amenable even to a ‘watered down’ version of the bill because it merely ‘renders the Right of Reply pointless.’
He also encouraged bloggers, netizens, texters and concerned youth to register their opposition to the ‘apparent railroading of the bill in Congress.’ ###
Kabataan Partylist Reresentative votes no to CARP Extension
Below is the Explanation of Vote of Kabataan Party-list Rep. Mong Palatino against HB 1257 An Act Accelerating the Completion of the Land Acquisition and Distribution Component of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), By Providing Automatic Appropriation Thereof, and Addressing Major Implementation Problems of the Program, Amending for the Purpose Republic Act No. 6657, As Amended, Otherwise Known as “The CARP Law of 1988” and Executive Order 129, As Amended :
I vote “NO” to HB 1257, I vote “NO” to extending the present Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
I vote NO because CARP extension would only create more opportunities for land owners and agribusiness firms to further consolidate their control over agricultural lands.
HB 1257 specifically provides for a “farmland as collateral,” an essential element of market-oriented land reform. Farmers who would avail of this provision may just find their lands foreclosed, thus resulting in the return of already-redistribut ed agricultural lands to the ownership of landlords and big agribusinesses.
I vote NO HB CARP extension because the present CARP has failed to stop bankrupt farmers from selling or transferring distributed lands despite so-called prohibitions on such transfers.
CARP failed to fulfill the constitutional mandate on agrarian reform program, as clarified by the Supreme Court by stating that “through the agrarian reform, the farmer at last will be released not only from want but also from the exploitation and disdain of the past and from feelings of inadequacy and helplessness; the farm will be his/her portion of Mother Earth that will give not only the staff of life but also the joy of living”.
I vote NO to HB 1257as it could be used by landlords, big agribusinesses and those with personal motives and interests to push for initiatives to develop corporate farms and facilitate foreign and local agricultural investments through the concept of a so-called Agrarian Reform Community (ARC). The ARC, I believe, would only increase the insecurity and loss of land tenure in the countryside.
Finally, I vote NO to CARP extension because it is clearly only meant to perpetuate the present flawed and bogus CARP in order to suit the needs of big landlords and agribusinesses. To pass this legislation would prove detrimental especially to small and landless farmers since introducing reforms to the present flawed CARP undermines the historical and rightful claim of farmers to own the land they till for free.
I vote NO because I firmly believe that requiring farmers to pay for the land they till is the biggest flaw of the present CARP – merely making it a real estate transaction between landlords and farmers with the government acting the role of broker.
Instead of extending the flawed CARP, Kabataan Party-list calls for a genuine land reform program that upholds land distribution as key to its success and completion. ###
Another ‘Travesty’ as Congress Votes to Extend Life of Failed CARP
Even landlords voted ‘yes’. Katanggap-tanggap sa kanila ang CARP extension (CARPER) dahil hindi nito binabasag ang konsentrasyon ng lupa sa malalaking landlords tulad ng mga Arroyo at iba pang Kongresista sa Mababang Kapulungan. They, not the farmers, will ultimately benefit from this bogus land reform.
The landlord-dominated Congress, led by the relatives of President Arroyo, voted Wednesday night to add five more years to the implementation of a 20-year-old agrarian-reform program that has failed to uplift the lives of peasants and farmers in the Philippines. And critics say the new proposed law is even worse than the original.
By MAO HERMITANIO and JANESS ANN J.ELLAO
Bulatlat
MANILA – A day after members of the House of Representatives approved a resolution that would pave the way for the possible extension of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s rule, they passed on third and final reading a controversial bill extending the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program – a bill that progressive partylist legislators had rejected for being anti-farmer, pro-landlord and worse than the original.
Led by the four relatives of President Arroyo (her two sons, her brother-in-law and sister-in-law) , 211 legislators voted “yes” to House Resolution 4077, or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER), 13 voted “no,” and only two abstained.
The bill intends to extend by five years the original Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). However, critics say CARPER is worse than CARP because it only reinforces the pro-landlord orientation of the original law.
Peasants, farmers and activists protesting in Congress Wednesday night. (Photo by Janess Ann J. Ellao/ bulatlat.com)
Among those who defended the bill and voted for its passage were principal authors Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay and Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel of the party-list group Akbayan. Rep. Jun Alcover of the partylist and anti-communist group ANAD praised the CARPER bill, calling its passage a “victory for farmers and democracy.”
The CARPER’s approval is sure to stoke the anti-Arroyo fire created by the approval Tuesday night of the resolution that would convene Congress into a constituent assembly so it can amend the Constitution.
Already, farmers’ groups have lined up protest actions against CARPER, with one protest march scheduled today, Thursday, from the Department of Agrarian Reform office in Quezon City to Mendiola, where farmers calling for a genuine agrarian-reform program had been shot and killed.
Arroyo Lands
“If CARP is extended, would it distribute the lands of the Arroyos to farmers?” Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano asked his colleagues shortly before the bill was approved through nominal voting before midnight Wednesday. Some members of the Arroyo clan had been resisting the implementation of CARP for years, as do many of the country’s landowners.
Peasants, farmers and activists protesting in Congress Wednesday night. (Photo by Janess Ann J. Ellao / bulatlat.com)
CARP, Mariano added, “was used only to reconcentrate the land of a few landed families,” referring to loopholes in the original law that allow landowners to circumvent the program, for instance by turning their farmlands into non-agricultural property.
Kabataan Rep. Raymond Palatino said CARP “failed our farmers.” He said — by way of explaining his “no” vote — that he could find no “just and righteous reason to extend a bogus land program.”
Bayan Muna Teddy Casiño called CARP “heartless and soul-less.” He pointed out that even Lagman, the principal author of CARPER, had admitted that the proposed new law “will not correct the congenital defects” of CARP. “By extending the life of a zombie agrarian-reform program, we are repeating the sin of the 8th congress,” Casiño said.
Failed Program
CARP, passed in 1988 as part of President Corazon Aquino’s so-called social-justice program, has largely been a failure. The extensions it has been given, including the one under CARPER, only underscores this.
According to a study by the economic think-tank Ibon Foundation, full land ownership in the Philippines has actually been declining since 1972, when the dictator Ferdinand Marcos passed Presidential Decree No. 27 that created the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Fully owned farms during that period accounted for 63 percent of total farm area, but this decreased to around 50 percent in 2002.
“Although there was a decrease in the share of completely tenanted and leased lands, this did not translate into full ownership but only part ownership,” Ibon Foundation’s research head, Sonny Africa, wrote in 2006. This implies, he said, “a continuation of tenancy and lease arrangements.”
In fact, Africa pointed out, the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) of 2002 reported that “only 11 percent of all families owning land other than their residence had obtained land through CARP.”
Africa explained that CARP’s failure is rooted in its pro-landlord orientation. “CARP is not about free land distribution to the tiller, which is the core of a genuine land reform program. Instead, CARP seeks to provide landlord compensation and require peasant beneficiaries to pay for land that they have been tilling for generations. Land reform under CARP is essentially a land transaction between landlords and peasants with the government acting as the middleman.”
CARP, Africa said, “cannot address peasant poverty and landlessness because it was never meant to.”
In a statement released today, Ibon said CARPER “strengthens the pro-landlord provisions of the failed CARP.” For one, it said, the bill “promotes the creation of more agrarian-reform communities (ARCs), further increasing the insecurity of land tenure in the countryside. The House version, in fact, seems to target the fine-tuning of the bankrupt ARC program to continue restructuring local agriculture in order to suit the needs of big land owners and agro-corporations.”
A protester denounces Akbayan and Rep. Riza Hontiveros-Baraquel for pushing a “bogus” bill. (Photo by Janess Ann J. Ellao / bulatlat.com)
Far from developing farming communities, as the name implies, ARCs have actually been used by landowners and big business to circumvent CARP. Among the ventures these communities go into are contract-growing schemes that favor companies and essentially turn the peasants into farm workers, not farm owners.
CARPER, as well as the agrarian-reform extension bill in the Senate, “reinforces the pro-landlord orientation of the original CARP, which was why it failed to make a dent in peasant landlessness in the first place,” Ibon Foundation said.
Additional Loopholes
Outside Congress hours before the voting, peasants and farmers have congregated to protest the impending passage of CARPER.
“CARPER creates additional loopholes to the already punctured CARP,” said Imelda Lacandazo, spokesperson of Kasama-TK, a peasant group from Southern Tagalog. “Twenty years of CARP is enough to conclude that it has and will never benefit our poor farmers.” CARPER is even worse than CARP, she said, especially after amendments were introduced that would further “reconcentrate lands in the hands of big landlords and big business.”
The progressive bloc in Congress led by partylist legislators from Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela and Kabataan tried to introduce amendments to CARPER but were prevented every step of the way.
Among the rejected amendments was the one scrapping the stock-distribution option in the original law, which has been blamed partly for CARP’s failure. This option allows landowners to give shares of stocks of a farm venture to farmers, instead of actually subdividing and distributing the land, which should be the intent of a genuine agrarian reform program.
Despite the rain on Wednesday, hundreds of farmers and activists lit their torches at the south gate of the Congress, with some banging on the doors of the gate. A firetruck was brought by House security to be used in case a dispersal was needed.
“We are not here to create trouble,” said Danilo Ramos, secretary-general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, or Peasant Movement of the Philippines) . “We are here to express our sentiments about this law.”Ramos and his groups tried to enter the gallery to watch the plenary session but were prevented by House security, which even barred employees from entering the hall at some point during the day.
Lacandazo of Kasama-TK decried the prioritization of CARPER over the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (GARB). Authored by the late Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, GARB or House Bill 3059 seeks to distribute land to landless farmers for free. Filed in November 2007, GARB is still pending with the House committee on agrarian reform.
“A genuine land reform law is impossible to attain in a Congress dominated by landlords, greedy politicians and their cohorts,” Lacandazo said. “The true interest of the House leadership is clear – it is to perpetuate the Arroyo ruling clique in power, and not to serve the poor farmers, which make up the majority of this country.”
Rep. Dato Arroyo from Camarines Sur, the president’s son, defended his “yes” vote by saying that “what we need is an extension of CARP that may be seen faulty or flawed by many of our colleagues, but that extension is better than having nothing at all.”
(Photo by Janess Ann J. Ellao / bulatlat.com)
The House leadership conducted the nominal voting in an unusual way – it called on each legislator using the reverse alphabet, seemingly so that the Arroyos in Congress, all four of them, would not be among the first to vote “yes” one after the other.
And for some reason, many of those who voted for CARPER could not say their votes out loud and were using signs to communicate their “yes” votes. (Bulatlat.com) [1]
Congratulations to Lorma Highlights!
May 21, 2009
Congratulations to the editors and staff of Lorma Highlights for winning this year’s Gawad Ernesto Rodriguez, Jr. for Best Broadsheet. Kudos also to all other winners! Continue to write for the interest of the students! Continue defending campus press freedom!
Account for Vegas spending, solons told `Pork virus’ more lethal, costly than swine flu
May 6, 2009
