Beginning with the amendment of Sec. 2 and 3 of the CARL, which defines the duty of the state to initiate the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and its beneficiaries, the CARPER primarily extends the land distribution program of CARP by five years. It also redefines the scope of the program, and as the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports, does away with the provision for voluntary land transfer, which was used by landlords to distribute the land under the controversial Stock Distribution Option.
In Sec. 18, the CARPER also mandates that all land reform cases must be under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) except for cases falling under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to issue any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC), the DAR, and other related agencies on agrarian reform cases.
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