By Roy Pelovello

PARTY-LIST lawmakers cautioned the leaders of the House of Representatives against making promises they may not be able to keep, referring to their vow to pass a new Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law in the next six months.

Speaker Prospero Nograles earlier said the House is committed to pass a new CARP law in the next six months.

Nograles made the promise after farmers and religious leaders scored Congress for the passing Joint Resolution 19, which extended for another six months the CARP law but without the compulsory land acquisition component.

In separate interviews, Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo and Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros said the promise to enact a new and genuine CARP law is a tall order considering the heated debates on Joint Resolution 19.

“That is a big question considering the majority stand of the representatives versus compulsory land acquisition. It may be hard to push genuine agrarian reform bill in the next six months,” Ocampo said.

Joint Resolution 19, certified as urgent by President Arroyo, would extend for six months the effectivity of the CARP law, including the compulsory land acquisition and distribution component.

But the stiff opposition coming from the majority in the administration-dominated House, resulted in the adoption of the watered-down resolution.

Hontiveros said Congress should have used the last six months of 2008 in deliberating a genuine CARP law if it is indeed sincere in uplifting the plight of the farmers.

“I am less confident that Congress will be able to pass the CARP bill in the next six months because it already removed compulsory acquisition of land in the joint resolution and it could have studied the bill if it had wanted to in the last six months,” said Hontiveros.

She said her group and other advocates of CARP will continue pushing for it in Congress as she also reiterated that they are thinking of challenging the legality of Joint Resolution 19 before the Supreme Court.

Even the militant lawmakers themselves have differences over the controversial CARP law.

Earlier, Hontiveros accused the group of Ocampo which include Anakpawis and Gabriela party-list groups, of strongly lobbying for the dismissal of the five-year CARP extension.

Ocampo’s group would rather push for the enactment of a new agrarian reform law and against the move to simply extend the present CARP law, as the group of Hontiveros had advocated.