Partnership for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development Services Inc. (PARRDS)

Background

PARRDS was established on 30 March 1994.

A few months earlier, the Congress for a People's Agrarian Reform (CPAR), the broadest gathering of peasant federations up to that time, had folded up after having pushed for a radical agrarian reform program for six years and united the major peasant groups around this advocacy.

PARRDS has tried to fill part of the vacuum created by the departure of CPAR.

It brought together some of the POs in CPAR, NGOs involved in its expanded secretariat, and to ensure greater transparency, political formations (PFs) that actively supported these POs and NGOs.

PARRDS is closer to the late rather than the early CPAR. It doesn't seek to trash CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) despite the deficiencies in this government program. Rather, acknowledging that CARP is superior to past agrarian reform programs, it strives to take advantage of the windows of opportunity created by CARP and to widen these windows further.

Hence, PARRDS and its members' main role is to help farmers and farmworkers to understand and appreciate their agrarian, political, civil and other rights, to organize themselves, and to fight for these rights with PARRDS alongside and supportive of them.

Vision

PARRDS is both a progressive coalition and a pragmatic service center.

As a coalition, it provides a forum for organizations with varying traditions to articulate their views and experiences in order to come to a consensus on progressive pragmatic advocacy positions. This invariably falls "between uncritical collaboration and outright opposition". Sometimes the stress is on calibrated criticism and sometimes it is on principled partnership.

As a service center, it refers farmers with agrarian problems who are affiliated with a member-organization to the individual or office in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) or in an NGO who may be helpful. It also provides technical and documentation support for joint activities of the members.

By coming together in a principled way, the PARRDS members hope to complement each other's strengths and more effectively clarify, articulate, and promote their position on various agrarian reform, rural development, and democratization matters.

Core Concerns and Priorities for 1999-2000

During the Strategic Planning Exercise conducted in November 1998, PARRDS adopted the following as core concerns:

• Agrarian Reform (land tenure improvement);
• Rural Development (program beneficiaries development);
• Local Government;
• Rural Women.

The Board meeting in April 1999 agreed to focus on two items in 1999:

• Policy advocacy (increasing the budget for agrarian reform, enacting the national land and water use act, strengthening the DAR Adjudication Board), and;
• ProCARRDS (or Provincial Consultations on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development) as a mechanism for speeding up the resolution of agrarian issues and making the process more transparent.

For the year 2000 the stresses agreed on during the Board meeting in July 1999 were:

• Policy advocacy and high-profile campaigns;
• ProCARRDS and local coalition building;
• Local governance with emphasis on organization strengthening and participatory barangay development planning and budgeting;
• Coalition maintenance and secretariat work.

Member Organizations

1. People's Organizations (POs)
   1. Buklod ng Malayang Magsasaka (BUKLOD)
   2. Katipunan ng mga Maliliit na Magniniyog sa Pilipinas (KAMMPIL)
   3. Demokratikong Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (dKMP)/PARAGOS
   4. Sarilaya Rural Women's Collective (SRWC)
   5. Ugnayan ng Malayang Samahan sa Kanayunan (UGNAYAN)

2. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
   1. Center for Agrarian Reform, Empowerment and Transformation (CARET)
   2. Cooperative Foundation Philippines, Inc. (CFPI)
   3. Education for Life Foundation (ELF)
   4. Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD)
   5. Project Development Institute (PDI)
   6. Philippine Ecumenical Action for Community Empowerment (PEACE)
   7. Philippine Peasant Institute (PPI)
   8. Quidan-Kaisahan Negros Occ. (QK)
   9. Rural Enlightenment and Accretion in Philippine Society (REAPS)

3. Political Formations (PFs)
   1. Bukluran para sa Ikauunlad ng Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa (BISIG)
   2. 2. Siglo ng Paglaya (SIGLAYA) - Padayon

Address:
Unit 305, Amaremca Bldg. (Cafe Emmanuel)
107 Kalayaan Ave. Bgy. Central
1100 Quezon City