Recto: Bill writing off P57 billion in agrarian reform loans will improve food security

The proposed bill which writes off P57 billion of agrarian reform beneficiaries' loans translates to P49,000 condoned per hectare on average and is necessary for food security, House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto said Monday.

Recto was referring to the bill ratified by both the House of Representatives and the Senate which covers the condonation of 610,054 agrarian reform beneficiaries' (ARBs) principal debt amounting to P57.557 billion, provided that these ARBs—tilling a total of 1,173,101.57 hectares of agrarian reform lands—are still in debt upon the passage of the proposed law. 

Of the P57 billion, P14.5 billion owed by 263,622 ARBs is outright condoned since the names of these ARBs and their loan details were already submitted by the Land Bank of the Philippines to Congress.

The remaining P43.057 billion amounting to the principal loans of 346,432 ARBs, on the other hand, will be condoned upon submission by LandBank and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) of details of these ARBs’ indebtedness to the government contained in a list of the collective certificates of land ownership award (CLOA).

"President Marcos Jr.’s first social legislation will free 610,000 farmers from debts owed in acquiring agrarian reform lands whose combined area of more 1.17 million hectares is 277 times the size of Manila. This is emancipation of massive scale, from the number of beneficiaries, to the amount to be condoned,” Recto said in a statement.

“The impact will be huge [as] it financially emancipates the farmers while freeing resources that can be used to achieve food security,” he added.

Recto then said that while letting go of P57.5 billion of loans may seem big, it actually does not cost much if you break it down per hectare and per farmer compared with other expenditures.

“On a per hectare basis, the average debt to be forgiven is P49,000. That is a fraction of the current selling price of less than a square meter of a condominium in Metro Manila," Recto said.

“That P49,000 for a productive hectare of land would feed a lot of people, and that P49,000 is only equal to what we give the beneficiaries of 4Ps in a year. On the other hand, every farmer who qualifies will get an average debt relief of P94,000," Recto added, referring to the conditional cash transfer for the poor of the government.

The P49,000 in a year, Recto said, is also the amount the government spends for every student under the Free College Education law.

"If corporations and high-income individuals have gotten tax breaks from recent laws slashing income tax rates, then why should not farmers get the same reprieve involving far smaller amounts? We have bailed out banks and companies owned by billionaires. We have allowed power sector obligations to migrate as national debts," Recto said.

"If we have pursued a debt forgiveness strategy for many troubled companies, why not one for poor farmers? We have forgiven bigger debts by a few in the past. This one, with a lesser amount, is owed by many," Recto added.

The bill is awaiting the President's signature for it to become a law. — BM, GMA Integrated News