MANILA, Philippines — A Malacañang official Tuesday assured farmers that the Aquino administration is working to fully implement the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPer).

Speaking after a group of farmers staged a lightning rally at the Malacañang, Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the government is actually on track in the implementation of the land reform program.

“The issue of agrarian reform is a cause of concern for us. We are on track, we are implementing the CARPer,” he said in a Palace news conference.

“By 2012, we will be ahead of the target acquisition number of hectares,” he added.

Lacierda said Agrarian Reform Secretary Gil delos Reyes is expected to hold dialogue with farmers to update them about the acquisition and distribution of agricultural lands.

Asked if security around the Palace will be increased following the lighting rally of the farmers, Lacierda said he would ask Presidential Security Group about the matter. He acknowledged that rallyists have resorted to “very creative ways” to protest and raise their concerns.

Farmers demanding the completion of agrarian reform have called on President Aquino to shower them with love on Valentine’s Day by implementing land distribution nationwide in earnest.

A delegation of 150 farmers from Negros Occidental, the farmers have pitched camp at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) earlier this week and marched to Malacanang Tuesday to present their demands.

They staged a lightning rally at the Palace to knock at the heart of President Aquino to grant their demand, saying that the pace of agrarian reform has been too slow to be able to meet the deadline set in 2014.

Instead of heeding their call, police and security forces dragged the protesting farmers as they protested in Malacañang, with lawmen hauling off 30 of them to the nearest precinct for investigation.

Organized by Task Force Mapalad (TFM), the farmers said they wish the President in his search for a lifetime partner but added they “also wished the Mr. Aquino to gift us the only thing that matters to our forefathers, ourselves, our children and our children’s children -- land.”

However, the police scuffled with the protesters who breached the "no protest" zone near the Palace, with 30 bruised farmers taken into custody.

TFM said those arrested came from Negros Occidental, Bukidnon, Davao Oriental and Batangas.

The farmers protested the treatment they got from law enforcers, insisting their demand is legitimate and consistent with their right to seek redress of grievances.

Alberto Jayme, TFM-Negros president, said: “We know our rights. We are not asking more than what we deserve."

Jayme explained that the sorry performance of DAR in land distribution, 41 percent nationwide and a measly five percent in Negros in 2011, does not augur well for the success of agrarian reform.

“The farmers have nothing left to lose, they have died for the lands that Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) promised them. The President should listen,” Jayme said.

He asked the President to speak now on a matter that concerns millions of farmers throughout the country.

“We are appalled by our President's deafening silence on CARPER. We feel like he has no heart for CARPER after all of his promises," Jayme said.

The TFM leader condemned the brutality they got from the police, noting that the suppression of civil liberties will only fire up protests not only in 330 haciendas in Negros Occidental where agrarian reform has not been implemented but in all other areas where the goals of agrarian reform had not been met.

TFM said the protests will continue as long as CARPER mandate is not being implemented by the DAR and the Aquino government as a whole.

The group added it will mobilize 20,000 farmers nationwide to demand the full implementation of CARPER and predicted there will be more and more protest actions from February to March.

"We are no longer afraid of being imprisoned or hurt in our protest, we are more afraid of hunger that awaits us if CARPER will not be implemented," he told the President.

The farmers stressed that “we welcome the President’s going hammer and thongs against corruption but we are likewise pleading for him to hear us and complete the process initiated under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and CARPER.”

“We have been denied our right to land,” they explained, “and we repose our trust in the President that he would abide by the law and push the DAR to make good on its pledge to erase the backlog on land distribution and compete the process of distributing more than 1.03 million hectares to landless peasants.”

Lending support to the farmers is Bishop Broderick Pabillo, national director of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines-National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace (CBCP-NASSA), who said “fighting corruption is good but forgetting other issues such as poverty alleviation is bad leadership."

Pabillo asked the President to devote his time and energy in eliminating the roots of social conflict all over the country.