By Christine F. Herrera

With only four months before the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program expires, the House has formed a special panel to work with Senate in carving out a new program, which will be effective for at least five years.

Speaker Prospero Nograles named to the panel House Majority Leader Arthur Defensor, Deputy Speaker Pablo Garcia, and Reps. Edcel Lagman of Albay, Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan, Luis Villafuerte of Camarines Sur, and Elias Bulut of Apayao, chairman of the committee on agrarian reform.

Senate Resolution 19, which was also adopted by the House, mandates both chambers to craft within six months a new law that will extend the agrarian program by another five years. The agrarian reform law expired on Dec. 31 last year but it was extended by another six months until June 2009.

?The creation of a special panel was approved by the all-member caucus Monday. We found the need for the back-channeling talks to speed up deliberations on the measure and to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate,? Nograles said.

Nograles said the panel will try to convince lawmakers in the House to give up the ?compulsory land acquisition? clause, which the landlord-dominated Senate junked in its resolution.

The special panel is mandated to ?iron out kinks in the bill? and would be working even if Congress is adjourned for a month-long recess, he said.

Nograles said the House and Senate panels will be working from March 7 to April 12 to come up with a mutually acceptable version that will be presented to the plenary when Congress resumes session on April 13.