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Republic of the Philippines
Saint Louis University, Baguio City
School of Law
PROMISED LAND: The Cry of the Poor Peasants
A Research Paper in Partial Fulfilment of the Subject:
Agrarian Law and Social Legislation
Submitted to:
Atty. Jennifer N. Asuncion
Submitted by:
Banez, May
Bosantog Herbert Armstrong
Cubian, Clifford
Dogaong, Azril
Poking, Samuel
December 5, 2015
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 6
II. AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE PHILIPPINES: AN OVERVIEW ..8
A. Agrarian Reform Defined 8
B. The Purpose: Philippine Agrarian Reform 9
C. Agrarian Reform in Action 1
D. Agrarian Reform in the 21st Century 12
1. Agrarian Reforms Core Principles 12
2. CARP/ERs Dubious Record 4
a. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)b. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms
(CARPER)
c. Lands Still to be Distributed
3. The Agrarian Situation 7
III. THE EVOLUTION OF PHILIPPINE AGRARIAN REFORM . 17
A. Colonial Era Land Tenure
B. Post-Independence Era Developments 21 C. Recent Agrarian reform Law Developments 23
D. Agrarian reform Program After Martial Law 4
E. Is Agrarian reform a Failure in the Philippines? 30
IV. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF AGRARIAN REFORM 2
A. Pre-Hispanic Era: Communal Ownership 32
B. Effects of Spanish Colonialism 3
1. Spanish Friars2. Encomienda System
3. The Hacienda System
C. The End of Spanish Colonial Rule and the American Influence . 37
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V. THE FAILURES OF EARLY AGRARIAN REFORM MEASURES 39
A. The William Howard Taft Administration 39
B. Philippine Bill of 1902 40
C. The Torrens System 40 D. Homestead Program of 1903 41
E. The Friar Lands Act of 1904 1
F. The Rice Tenancy Act 42
G. Succeeding Tenancy Acts 42
H. Other Agrarian Laws Introduced by the Americans .43
VI. GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES ON AGRARIAN REFORM 4
A. What Triggered the Initiation of Philippine Agrarian Reform? 44
B. Manuel L. Quezon Administration (1935-1944) 46
1. Laws on Agrarian Reform during His Administration
C. Agrarian Reform Initiatives by Other Administrations . 48
1. Manuel A. Roxas Administration (1946-1948) . 48
2. Elpidio Quirino Administration (1948-1953) . 49
3. Ramon Magsaysay Administration (1953-1957) . 49
a. The Key Support Programs on Agrarian Reform4. Carlos P. Garcia Administration (1957-1961) .50
D. Diosdasdo Macapagal Administration (1961-1965) 51
E. Ferdinand E. Marcos Administration (1965-1986) .52
F. Corazon C. Aquino Administration (1986-1992) . 54
1. Agrarian Reform Legislations and Issuances Passed under thisAdministration
2. Other Accomplishments of the Aquino Administration
G. Fidel V. Ramos (1992-1998) 7 1. What was done to facilitate land distribution?
H. Joseph Ejercito Estrada Administration (1998-2001) . 59
I. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Administration (2001 2010) .61
J. Benigno C. Aquino Administration (2010 up to present) .63
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VII. FAILURES OF AGRARIAN REFORM OF THE PAST ADMINISTRATIONS 66
A. Manuel L. Quezon (Budget Allocation and Outbreak of War)
B. Manuel A. Roxas (Lack of Support Facilities)
C. Elpidio Quirino (Limited Post-War Resources)D. Ramon Magsaysay (Lack of Funds)
E. Carlos P. Garcia (Implementation)
F. Diosdasdo Macapagal (Implementation)
G. Ferdinand E. Marcos (Existence of Some Limitations)
H. Corazon C. Aquino (Budgetary Shortfall)
I. Fidel V. Ramos (Installation of Farmer Beneficiaries)
J. Joseph Ejercito Estrada (Fiscal Constraints and Conflicts)
K. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (Positive)
L. Benigno C. Aquino (Snail-Paced)
VIII. OVERALL ASSESSMENT OF PHILIPPINE AGRARIAN REFORM 73
IX. RECOMMENDATIONS . 5
A. PRINCIPLES OF GENUINE AGRARIAN REFORM
X. CONCLUSION . . 78
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ABSTRACT
Being landless was the main cause of social unrest and revolt. Land dispute
has been characterised by fierce, sometimes bloody, power struggles over
lands. Laws and decrees have been passed to correct the sharp inequalities
in the distribution of land ownership. The government introduced a variety
of laws and regulations to improve the lot of the tenant farmers and small
landholders. Agrarian reform programs have been enacted to be
implemented as a social justice measure in order to change the prevailing
situation of unjust and inequitable ownership of land and resources by a few
individuals in the society. However, the reform laws have been tainted with
vested interest of the landed elite in enacting the law, making the reformimplementation difficult and derailed. The agrarian reform laws contained
legal loopholes that gave landlords the opportunity to have their lands be
exempted, if not delaying the inclusion, through legal means. Philippine
agrarian reform has experienced all the difficulties one would expect in a
poor society of immense inequality. The emergence of an independent,
unified agrarian reform department was slow.
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I. INTRODUCTION
Land for the landless is a slogan that underscores the acute imbalance in the
distribution of this precious resource among the Filipino people. But it is more than a
slogan. Through the brooding centuries, it has become a battle-cry dramatizing the
increasingly urgent demand of the dispossessed among us for a plot of earth as their
place in the sun (Assoc. of Small Landowners in the Philippines vs. Secretary of Agrarian
Reform, GR. No. 78742).
Agrarian reform has been the main policy response of government to correct the
sharp inequalities in the distribution of land ownership in the Philippines. The historical
records show that the process of disposal of State lands has heavily favored households
with economic and political power. The result has been the ownership of big
landholdings by few families and the rise of haciendas or family estates comprising
several hundreds and thousands of hectares. Land distribution tended to become
concentrated in landed elites and large masses of peasants were displaced and became
landless.
For over a century, the Philippines has been characterised by fierce, sometimes
bloody, power struggles over land. In addition, Agrarian reform has been a highlypolitical issue for centuries, a factor that contributed to its sluggish performance in
every regime in the last century. The historical records of agrarian reform programs
were believed to be implemented as a social justice measure in order to change the
prevailing situation of unjust and inequitable ownership of land and resources by a few
individuals in the society.
Agrarian reform first appeared on the agenda of Philippine policy making with
the beginning of the American colonial rule. Since the turn of the century, several landrelated laws and programs were introduced by the American administration. Realizing
that being landless was the main cause of social unrest and revolt at that time, the
Americans sought to put an end to the miserable conditions of the tenant tillers.
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The American initiatives on agrarian reform were followed by another set of
reform laws enacted by the Philippine government after the installation of the
Philippine Republic in 1946. Most of them were tenancy reforms and land settlement
projects trying to address rural unrest rather than pursuing economic or social motives.
After Philippine independence in 1946, successive governments introduced a variety of
laws and regulations to improve the lot of the tenant farmers and small landholders.
Agrarian reform programs have been enacted by different regimes for specific
reasons, albeit political motive has been the common one. As the objectives of such
reform had undergone changes over time based primarily on the socio-political context
prevailing in each period, the original intentions of the reform have also been subjected
to changes in each political regime. While the motive of the government in instituting
this reform deserves commendation; however, the reform laws have been tainted with
vested interest of the landed elite in enacting the law, making the reform
implementation difficult and derailed.
Philippine agrarian reform has experienced all the difficulties one would expect
in a poor society of immense inequality. Laws and decrees have been passed over three
decades, yet many ambiguities of interpretation remain. Decisions on land valuation
are subject to bargaining processes which occasion lengthy delays. The emergence ofan independent, unified agrarian reform department was slow.
Land distribution und er the Aquino administration has been moving at a snails
pace. Despite judicial decisions, the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita lands has been
slow and bureaucratic with harassments of worker-beneficiaries. As peasant leader
Jaime Tadeo bewailed: How much land still needs to be redistributed? Where are
these lands located? These are data for which we continue to petition the agency in
vain. Indeed, the agrarian reform laws contained legal loopholes that gave landlords
the opportunity to have their lands be exempted, if not delaying the inclusion, through
legal means.
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II. AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE PHILIPPINES: AN OVERVIEW
A. Agrarian Reform Defined
Agrarian reform is the redistribution of public and private agricultural lands,regardless of produce and tenurial arrangement, to landless farmers and regular farm
workers, to include support services and other arrangements alternative to distribution
of land such as production/profit sharing, labor organization, or distribution of shares
of stock. [1] The Republic Act 6657 [2] or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988
has defined agrarian reform as:
the redistribution of lands regardless of crops or fruits
produced to farmers and regular farmworkers who are
landless, irrespective of tenurial arrangement, to include
the totality of factors and support services designed to lift
the economic status of the beneficiaries and all other
arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of
lands, such as production or profit-sharing labor
administration, and the distribution of shares of stock,
which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.
Agrarian reform most often refers to transfer from ownership by a relatively
small number of wealthy (or noble) owners with extensive land holdings (e.g.
plantations, large ranches, or agribusiness plots) to individual or collective ownership
by those who work the land. Agrarian reform usually refers to government-initiated or
government-backed redistribution of i.e. transfer of ownership of (or tenure in)
agricultural land. [3]
____________________[1] Source: www.edu.cebuestates.com/agrarian-land-reform/1concepts-exemptions-retention.htm
[2] Republic Act No. 6657, Sec. 3 (a).[3] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarian_reform
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Agrarian Reform does not, of course, simply mean changes in land ownership. It
also involves the provision of support services including, but not restricted to, capital
and credit, improved production and post-harvest technologies, access to physical
markets and market information, as well as access to social services. Such services are
designed not only to improve incomes but also to reduce inequities in control over
assets and markets, to militate against distress sales of land or subjection to usury and
thereby to assist beneficiaries in developing their relative autonomy both culturally and
politically. [4]
B. The Purpose: Philippine Agrarian Reform
Agrarian reform has been the main policy response of government to correct the
sharp inequalities in the distribution of land ownership in the Philippines. The historical
records show that the process of disposal of State lands has heavily favored households
with economic and political power. These households had undue advantage over the
common populace in acquiring property rights through the Spanish system of royal
grants and the American system of land cadastre. The result has been the ownership of
big landholdings by few families and the rise of haciendas or family estates comprising
several hundreds and thousands of hectares. [5]
Agrarian reform efforts to correct these inequalities have been traced back to
the Commonwealth period. [6] The main motivation of the earlier reforms was the break-
up of monopoly ownership and control of land resources. Starting the 1960s, however,
major advances in the implementation of agrarian reform program in the country took
____________________[4] Arthur D. Neame. February 2008. Agrarian Reform and Rural Development Mapping the Terrain. [5] Marife Ballesteros and Alma dela Cruz. December, 2006. Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
Agrarian reform and Changes in Land Ownership Concentration: Evidence from Rice-Growing Villages in thePhilippines . Discussion Paper Series No. 2006-21.
[6] The start of agrarian reform in the Philippines has been traced back to the break-up of friar lands in1908. This was followed by other Acts that focused on tenancy reforms and resettlement on public lands. Tenancyreforms involved regulations on contracts and landlord-tenant relations aimed at protecting tenants againstabuses by the landlords (Public Act 4054). On the other hand, resettlement involved the opening up of newsettlement areas and the purchase of friar lands for distribution to peasants. (Murray 1972 in Hayami and Kukuchibook 1981).
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place. In 1963, the Agrarian Reform Code was enacted which introduced the concept
of owner-cultivatorship and leasehold tenure. Owner-cultivatorship provided tenants
the opportunity to own land while leasehold tenancy afforded tenants permanent use
rights over the land. The 1963 Code paved way to a modern concept of agrarian
reform which envisioned a broad-based human and economic development for the
agriculture sector. This concept broach the idea of an agrarian reform program instead
of merely agrarian reform to emphasize the concern not only with the acquisition and
distribution of land but also of uplifting the political and socioeconomic status of
beneficiaries. It is in this light that the 1972 and 1988 agrarian reform programs have
been instituted. In particular, Presidential Decree 27 (PD 27) of 1972 resulted in the
following changes in the program [7][8] :
i. one, coverage of the reform was not limited to pilot areas but
applied comprehensively;
ii. two, acquisition of private lands was made compulsory;
iii. three, land ownership ceiling was substantially lowered from 75
to 7 hectares; and
iv. four, the inclusion of support services to assist beneficiaries
attain economic efficiency in production.
Additional reforms were instituted under Republic Act (RA) 6657 of 1988 or the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL). CARL has all the basic design of the 1972
program but coverage was expanded to all agricultural lands while ownership ceiling
was further reduced to 5 hectares. [9]
____________________[7] The earlier programs were never implemented on a large scale. In particular, the 1963 program coveredonly pilot areas in Central Luzon. The retention limit under the 1963 Code was 75 hectares. Governmentexpropriated land in excess of 75 hectares. In 1972, landowners where allowed to retain at most 7 hectares plus 3hectares for each heir of the land they currently owned.
[8] Marife Ballesteros and Alma dela Cruz. December, 2006. Philippine Institute for Development Studies. Agrarian reform and Changes in Land Ownership Concentration: Evidence from Rice-Growing Villages in thePhilippines . Discussion Paper Series No. 2006-21.
[9] Ibid.
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C. Agrarian Reform in Action
Despite the shortcomings of the agrarian reform programs in the Philippines,
these programs specifically PD 27 and CARL paved way to the break-up of huge estates.
In several areas the increase in the number of owner cultivators has been observed evenin provinces where the hacienda system used to dominate. However, the rampant
selling and mortgaging of lands awarded to farmer beneficiaries have also been
reported (DAR 1996). The Department of Agrarian Reform reports that in 23 provinces
covered by agrarian reform the proportion of farmer beneficiaries in a village which
have had sale transactions range from a low of 7% to a high of 100%. [10]
In general, the agrarian reform law prohibits the transfer of awarded lands
except by hereditary succession. This legal impediment however has not prevented the
sale of awarded lands. Sales and other forms of land transfer actions of farmer
beneficiaries have been attributed to the demand for overseas employment and to the
low productivity of agriculture [11][12] . Studies show that such actions are not necessarily
regressive but have led to an increase in investments of rural households in
education [13] . However, there is a growing concern over the possible consolidation of
agricultural lands which can again lead to widening land ownership distribution. [14]
____________________[10] Marife Ballesteros and Alma dela Cruz. December, 2006. Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
Agrarian reform and Changes in Land Ownership Concentration: Evidence from Rice-Growing Villages in thePhilippines. Discussion Paper Series No. 2006-21.
[11] Nagarajan, Geetha, C. David, R. Meyer (1992) Informal Finance Through Land Pawning Contracts:Evidence from the Philippines. Journal of Development Studies 29 (1): 93-107.
[12] Estudillo, J. Y. Sawada and K. Otsuka (2006). Changing Determinants of Schooling Investments andOverseas Emigration: Evidence from Rural Villages in the Philippines. Draft paper submitted for publication to theJournal of Economic Literature.
[13] Ibid.[14] Marife Ballesteros and Alma dela Cruz. December, 2006. Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
Agrarian reform and Changes in Land Ownership Concentration: Evidence from Rice-Growing Villages in thePhilippines . Discussion Paper Series No. 2006-21.
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D. Agrarian Reform in the 21st Century
For over a century, the Philippines has been characterised by fierce, sometimes
bloody, power struggles over land. Typically, governments have won votes and
appeased protestors by promising to reform land ownership, but have then failed todeliver more than token levels of redistribution. [15]
In June 2014, the Philippine governments agrarian reform law reached its 26th
year of implementation (including a 16-year extension period) with completion nowhere
in sight. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) and its extension, the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) had
provisions that were generally favorable to their intended beneficiaries. But CARP/ER
was also essentially the result of a compromise between pro and anti-agrarian reform
blocs in the Philippine Congress and thus also contained provisions inserted by
landowner lobbyists that are considered loopholes in the law. [16]
1. Agrarian Reforms Core Principles [17]
The basic principles of a genuine, meaningful and sustainable agrarian reform
program are enshrined in the long history of agrarian unrest and rural social movementsthat have punctuated the countrys experience since colonial times. In the current era,
they are best exemplified by the Declaration of Principles adopted in May 1987 by the
Congress for a Peoples Agrarian Reform (CPAR) wh ich became the highest expression
of peasant, farm worker, and fisher folk unity immediately after the ouster of the
Marcos dictatorship in 1986. CPAR consisted of twelve (12) major rural national and
regional mass organizations and fourteen (14) non-governmental support groups from
____________________[15] Saturnino M. Borras Jr. and Jennifer Franco . October, 2008. Reforming Agrarian reform in the
Philippines . Research findings at a glance from the Institute of Development Studies Citizens Building ResponsiveStates.
[16] Eduardo Climaco Tadem. May 2015. Philippine Agrarian Reform in the 21st Century. Land grabbing,conflict and agrarianenvironmental transformations: perspectives from East and Southeast Asia. An internationalacademic conference 56 June 2015, Chiang Mai University Discussion Note No. 2.
[17] Ibid.
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all sections of the political spectrum. The CPAR declaration asserted that, The core
principle in agrarian reform is the primacy of the right of all members of the
agricultural labor force who do not own land, near-landless farmers, farmworkers,
small fisherfolk and other direct producers to own and control the land, have full
access to other natural resources and gain full disposition over the. [ 18]
In this regard, the major issues are (1) social justice and inequality, (2) low
productivity, (3) lack of control by the rural masses over their lives and destiny, (4)
under-industrialization, (5) environmental breakdown, and (6) foreign domination.
CPAR also outlined the aims of its agrarian reform program:
1. To transfer landed wealth and power over the land and its produce to the actual
tillers;
2. To free and develop the productive powers of agrarian workers, and fisher folk
form the forces that deprive them of resources and initiative;
3. To develop the mechanisms for people empowerment by creating autonomous
decision-making bodies of the rural masses;
4. To promote nationalist industrialization by widening the national market,
rechannelling the agricultural surplus into industrial investments and labor for
industrial development, and the establishment of self-sufficient local industriescontrolled by the rural masses;
5. To conserve the natural environment so that it may serve the short and long-
term needs of the Filipino people; and
6. To do away with foreign control over natural resources.
These then are the basic principles and features of an agrarian reform program that
meets the true needs and deep aspirations of the Filipino peasantry and other rural
working classes. When measured against what CARP/ER has had to offer, CPAR and
PARCODE definitely represent the more superior alternative.
____________________[18] Congress for a Peoples Agrarian Reform (CPAR)
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Economist Lourdes Adriano (1991) [19] said as much in declaring that, PARCODE
is superior to CARP since (1 ) in terms of area coverage it is more comprehensive (2)
it does not provide alternative schemes to land distribution (thu s) lessening the
possible evasionary venues available to present landowners, (3) it proposes a single
retention limit which is likewise the award ceiling to agrarian reform beneficiaries,
(4) it stipulates that the prospective beneficiaries acquire quality or prime lands,
thereby enhancing their opportunity to increase yields, (5) it favors a shorter time
period for agrarian reform implementation, and (6) lastly, it is more flexible for
unlike RA 6657 which stipulates a step-wise implementation schedule, PARCODE leaves
determination of the priority areas to the (peoples) agrarian reform committees.
Adriano concludes that:
If implemented according to plan, PARCODEs agrarian
reform program will ensure a more egalitarian landownership
structure. Moreover, since it is premised on the development
of small-sized farms, it will ensure the economy of a more
efficient allocation of the countrys resources.
2. CARP/ERs Dubious Record [20]
a. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP)
The CARP was an improvement over previous legislation in that it covered all
agricultural lands and the entire rural landless labor force. But it was hobbled by anti-
peasant and pro-landlord provisions that allowed mere regulation of existing tenurial
forms including the nefarious stock distribution option and leaseback agreements,
provided for an omnibus list of exemptions, established fair market value for
____________________[19] Lourdes Saulo Adriano, A General Assessment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program,
Working Paper Series No. 91-13. Philippine Institute of Development Studies, August 1991.[20] Eduardo Climaco Tadem. May 2015. Philippine Agrarian Reform in the 21st Century. Land grabbing,
conflict and agrarianenvironmental transformations: perspectives from East and Southeast Asia. An internationalacademic conference 56 June 2015, Chiang Mai University Discussion Note No. 2.
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landowner compensation, created a payment amortization scheme that was
unfavorable for beneficiaries, set a high retention limit of as much as 14 hectares,
prioritized the distribution of public land over private holdings, mandated a long period
of implementation, and generally ignored the role of beneficiaries and civil society
groups in seeing the program through.
b. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms
(CARPER)
CARPER, on the other hand, also contained provisions that favored beneficiaries
in terms of land acquisition and distribution such as the indefeasibility of awarded
beneficiary lands, recognition of usufruct rights of beneficiaries, a grace period for
amortization payments, speeding up the process of awarding lands, removal of the
stock-distribution option, disallowed the conversion of irrigable and irrigated lands,
automatic coverage of lands targeted for conversion pending for at least 5 years,
reinstated compulsory acquisition and voluntary-offers-of-sale as main redistribution
modes, and recognized women as beneficiaries.
c. Lands Still to be Distributed
Despite all these gains, anti-reform legislators still managed to insert a killeramendment that allowed landowners to determine who would be beneficiaries and
who would be excluded from the program. Other objectionable provisions are those
expanding the list of exempted lands, allowing local governments to acquire
agricultural lands beyond the 5-hectare retention limit and the deprioritization of
seasonal and other non-regular farmworkers as qualified beneficiaries. Despite some
changes, major CARP constraints such as the landlord compensation scheme based on,
among others, market value and the beneficiary payment formula based on gross
production have been retained.
It must be stated, however, that the gains, especially from CARPER, were the
results of unrelenting and struggles by peasant and farmworker groups to assert their
rights and sustained pressure on government to accord them their entitled rights.
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Still and all, as a result of the long-standing and self-serving practice of
prioritizing public lands over the distribution of private lands, DAR is still left with a
balance of about one million hectares of the most difficult and contentious lands still
to be distributed as of December 2013. This is a more realistic estimate given: (1) the
absence of validating data for DARs claim that only less than 800,000 hectares remain
to be distributed and, (2) given areas that were arbitrarily removed from the target, or
are not being targeted (including problematic landholdings), untitled properties, and
exempted or excluded lands which should have been covered by the program. To
camouflage its lacklustre performance, DAR has resorted to merely reporting the
issuances of Notices of Coverage (NOC) as accomplishments while keeping from public
view the more essential indicators of Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs)
and, even more crucial, Emancipation Patents (EPs).
As peasant leader Jaime Tadeo bewailed: How much land still needs to be
redistributed? Where are these lands located? These are data for which we continue
to petition the agency in vain. Indeed land distribution under the Aquino
administration has been moving at a snails pace; marked by a consistent and chronic
failure to meet annual targets, the shameless misrepresentation of performance
indicators, and lack of political commitment by the DAR leadership under Secretary
Virgilio de los Reyes. Despite judicial decisions, the redistribution of Hacienda Luisita
lands has been slow and bureaucratic with harassments of worker-beneficiaries
continuing. Agrarian reform support groups argue that the current administrations
CARP performance is the worst since 1988, the year CARP took effect. [21]
In many instances, however, powerful families have also taken control over
public lands and have resisted (sometimes violently) their distribution to qualified
beneficiaries. In any case, the distribution of privately-owned and/or privately-
controlled landholdings constitute the heart and soul of agrarian reform and here is
where the implementation of CARP/ER has been found to be most wanting and
____________________[21] Focus on the Global South (with the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance), The State of Agrarian Reform Under
President Benigno Aquino IIIs Government: Beyond the Numbers: A struggle for social justice and inclusive ruraldevelopment, (Focus on the global south-Philippines: Quezon City. 2013.
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negligent.
Contrary to the claim of the present DAR leadership that landowner resistance is
not a major problem, numerous reports have surfaced of farmers being evicted,
harassed, intimidated and killed by landlords and hired goons. Furthermore, between 2012 and 2013, there was a 4.6 percent increase in the number of cases filed by
resistant landowners at the Agrarian Reform Adjudication Board.
Land grabbing and land use conversions are intensifying even in landholdings that
have been covered for distribution thus denying the rights of potential agrarian reform
beneficiaries to own and control the land. These are misappropriated for non-
agricultural purposes such as real estate development, tourism, mining, and special
economic zones by foreign and domestic land speculators such as influential politicians,
local governments and giant property developers like Ayala Lan d, SM, and Villars Vista
Land and Lifescapes. The more prominent examples are the cases of Sumalo, Plaridel,
Sicogon and Casiguran. Also violative of agrarian reform ideals is the entry of
investments in various agreements and contracts like joint ventures, leasehold, public-
private partnership (PPP) and the aggressive expansion of crops for agrofuels
(biofuels) [22] setting aside thousands of hectares of land for plantation activities under
large-scale agribusiness production and management arrangements.
3. The Agrarian Situation [23]
Agrarian reform has been a highly political issue for centuries, a factor that
contributed to its sluggish performance in every regime in the last century. The
historical records of agrarian reform programs were believed to be implemented as a
social justice measure in order to change the prevailing situation of unjust and
____________________[22] Focus on the Global South (with the Save Agrarian Reform Alliance), The State of Agrarian Reform Under
President Benigno Aquino IIIs Government: Beyond the Numbers: A struggle for social justice and inclusive ruraldevelopment, (Focus on the global south-Philippines: Quezon City. 2013.
[23] Eduardo Climaco Tadem. May 2015. Philippine Agrarian Reform in the 21st Century. Land grabbing,conflict and agrarianenvironmental transformations: perspectives from East and Southeast Asia. An internationalacademic conference 56 June 2015, Chiang Mai University Discussion Note No. 2.
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equitable ownership of land and resources by a few individuals in the society [24] .
The rural peasants struggles remained the potent force at the grassroots level
in the different regimes that led to the undertaking of agrarian reform beginning from
the Spanish colonialism up to the Aquino presidency [25] . With agricultural lands that had
been in the possession of a few powerful landlords and corporations, for centuries the
majority of people remained as tenants, farm workers and landless agricultural
laborers, a reality that has contributed to the poverty in the countryside for long
time [26] . It was viewed that agricultural development policies of the government had
been unresponsive to the needs of the peasantry as a whole for many decades [27] .
The apparent exploitative agrarian structure intensified the claims for agrarian
reform. It was in 1988, under the government of President Corazon Aquino, that
Republic Act 6657, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL),
set in motion the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program
(CARP). Upon her ascension into power in 1986, President Aquino envisioned agrarian
and agrarian reform as the center- piece of her administrations social legislative agenda
which took effect two years after the peaceful People Power Revolution and the end
of the Marcos authoritarian rule. Its fundamental principle and slogan was land-to-the-
tiller. [28] Under this law, agrarian reform becomes a major component of agrarian
reform.
Agrarian reform was originally meant to restore the dignity and improve the lives
of the then 10 million-strong rural labor force by transforming them into owner-
cultivators and productive citizens, the watered-down CARP/ER and its skewed
implementation have instead aggravated rural inequalities and brought about
____________________[24] Putzel, James. 1995. Managing the Main Force : The Communist Party and the Peasantry in the
Philippines. Journal of Peasant Studies, 22 (4): 645 71.[25] Hayami, Yujiro et. al. 1990. Toward an Alternative Agrarian reform Paradigm: A Philippine Perspective.
Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press.[26] Lindio-McGovern, Ligaya. 1997. Filipino Peasant Women: Exploitation and Resistance. USA: University
of Pennsylvania Press.[27] Ibid.[28] Land-to-the tiller essentially means that those who directly labor and till the land have the right to own
it (Lindio-Mcgovern 1997: 145).
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stagnation in the countryside. It is estimated that 75 percent of the countrys poor live
in the rural areas.
Given the official rural poverty incidence of 38 percent (compared to 14 percent
for urban areas), there are at least 13 million rural-dwelling Filipinos suffering inpoverty. Of the countrys poor households, 61 percent are in the agricultural and fishery
sectors. Poverty incidence is highest among farmers at 41 percent and fisher folk at 37
percent compared to the national poverty incidence of 27 percent.
From 2009 to 2012, more people in the countryside entered subsistence poverty
(125,724) than nationally (107,877). Despite CARP/ERs avowed goal of redistributing
land, and although many beneficiaries have become owner-cultivators, inequities in
land distribution have been increasing with the land inequality ratio today peaking at
0.57, up from 0.53 in 1960. Furthermore the agricultural sectors labor productivity is
only 16 percent that of industrial workers and 31 percent of service workers.
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III. THE EVOLUTION OF PHILIPPINE AGRARIAN REFORM
After nearly four centuries of colonial rule, the Philippines inherited a land
tenure system which benefitted mainly the landed oligarchy and subjected the rural
population to virtual serfdom through the sharecropping system and other forms of
tenant farming. After Philippine independence in 1946, successive governments
introduced a variety of laws and regulations to improve the lot of the tenant farmers
and small landholders.
With the development of the chaotic situation in the 1960s which led to the
imposition of martial law in 1972, a new sense of urgency was added to heighten the
need for serious reforms of land tenure law. As a result, sweeping decrees were
pronounced by the government of President Ferdinand Marcos. This article will attempt
to review and analyze the legal and policy developments in this area which is vital to
the economic and social stability of the Philippines.
A. Colonial Era Land Tenure
The present land tenure system in the Philippines is mainly the result of several
centuries of Spanish colonial rule which displaced or discouraged small native
landholders and concentrated land ownership in the hands of a relatively small number
of wealthy Spanish and Filipino individuals, families and associations. The displaced
native landowners became largely sharecroppers or hired labor on the lands acquired
by the Spanish, mestizo and Filipino elites. [29]
Unrest among the rural population, resulting from Spanish colonial abuses was
one of the central causes of the Filipino revolution in 1896. However, the expectations
of the landless peasants and their leaders were subverted when, soon after the Spanish
had been expelled, the landowning Filipino aristocracy took control of the national
____________________[29] Bauzon, Philippine Agrarian Reform, 1880-1975, Occasional Paper No. 31, Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies (June 1975).
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leadership. This co-optation of the revolution delayed attempts at meaningful agrarian
reform legislation for several decades longer. [30]
In the post-Hispanic era, the Homestead Act of 1902, enacted by the Philippines
Commission on the model of the earlier legislation passed in the United States, servedas the basis of attempts at agrarian reform. The American policy was to encourage
settlers to develop and cultivate public land by offering plots not exceeding 24
hectares, to individuals who succeeded in cultivating one-fifth of the land within five
years. The American program for distributing vacant public land to the landless was
apparently not too successful because it proved to be culturally and socially ill-adapted
to the -needs and capabilities of the small farmer or rural peasant. [31]
During the transitory Commonwealth period and continuing through the 1950s,
very little progress was made in the direction of agrarian reform. The Filipino elite
which had assumed control of the government after disengagement of the Americans
consisted mainly of large landholders and their allies, with a vested interest in blocking
serious reforms. The government of Manuel Quezon enacted legislation for use in
expropriating large hacienda landholdings for distribution to rural sharecroppers and
peasants, but the authority to expropriate was never effectively exercised. [32]
B. Post-Independence Era Developments
In 1963, the first comprehensive legislative program for agrarian reform was
passed by the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines. [33] The Agrarian reform Code
declared for the first time that the sharecrop system of tenancy was counter to public
policy and that it shall be abolished . [34] However, even this seemingly unequivocal
statement of policy was qualified by important exceptions. Existing sharecrop
____________________[30] Bauzon, Philippine Agrarian Reform, 1880-1975, Occasional Paper No. 31, Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies (June 1975).[31] Id. at 12.[32] See Pinpin, ED., Philippine Laws on Agrarian Reform (1973) ,[33] Rep. Act No. 3844 (1963). This Act is commonly known as the Agrarian reform Code of 1963.[34] Agrarian reform Code, sec. 4,
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arrangements were allowed to continue, subject to the provisions of the Agricultural
Tenancy Act of 1954, as amended. [35]
The other important exception to the Agrarian reform Code's application was the
exemption of lands devoted to crops covered by marketing allotments for internationaltrade. Under this provision, lands cultivated for important crops like sugar and coconuts
were not affected. A separate proclamation was to be issued to cover agrarian reform
for these types of agricultural land.
The Agrarian reform Code, though riddled with important exceptions, was the
first real attempt to create a comprehensive legislative basis for agrarian reform in the
Philippines. In the regions where it applied, an organized "agricultural leasehold system"
was created, establishing definite rights and duties for lessee and lessor. A "Bill of
Rights" for agricultural laborers was also included in the Agrarian reform Code.
Centralized administrative machinery set up by the Code included a Land Authority,
Land Bank, Agricultural Credit Administration, Courts of Agrarian Relations, Office of
Agrarian Counsel and the National Agrarian reform Council to coordinate these and
other agencies involved in agrarian reform.
The revolutionary approach to agrarian reform adopted by the Agrarian reform
Code was thwarted in the end by inter-agency competition and political infighting
during the turbulent 1960s. [36] The central reason for conflict was that, rather than
stating outright which land areas in the country would be governed by its provisions,
the Agrarian reform Code required that agrarian reform areas be proclaimed . A
complicated procedure, involving cooperation among the several agencies concerned
with agrarian reform, had to be followed before any proclamation could be effected.
Lack of coordination and cooperation among the agencies resulted in a fragmentation
of authority which immobilized the whole agrarian reform program. [37]
____________________[35] Rep. Act No. 1199 (1954) ["Tenancy Act"]. This law sets the maximum rental payable by a sharecrop
tenant at 30% of the crop and, as amended in 1959, allows the tenant to convert unilaterally to a leasehold tenancy.[36] Seadag, Agrarian reform in the Philippines, Rural Development Panel Seminar, Baguio, Philippines, April
24-26, 1975, at II.[37] Id.
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C. Recent Agrarian reform Law Developments
In September 1971, the Agrarian reform Code itself was reformed. The
bureaucratic morass of competing agencies which had developed since 1963 resulted in
increasing pressure for a more centralized administration of the government agrarianreform program. On September 10, 1971, the Code of Agrarian Reform of the
Philippines [38] was enacted to amend substantially the administrative apparatus
created by the Agrarian reform Code. Under the new Agrarian Code, a central
Department of Agrarian Reforms ("DAR") was established. The new law thereby
eliminated the interagency conflict and complicated agrarian reform proclamation
process which had existed under the Agrarian reform Code.
The basic objective of converting sharecrop tenants into leasehold tenants,
introduced in the Agrarian reform Code, was also adopted in the Agrarian Code.
Additionally, Section 4 of the new Code provided for an automatic conversion of all
sharecrop agreements to leaseholds by operation of law, for those types of land
affected by the Code. The Agrarian Code, like the earlier Agrarian reform Code, still
applied only to certain types of agricultural land. Those lands not covered, which are
mainly those devoted to crops covered by marketing allotments, continue to be subject
to the Tenancy Act.
The basic problem with the new Agrarian Code, as with the Agrarian reform
Code, was one of supervision and enforcement. Ensuring that all sharecrop tenancies
are actually converted to leasehold tenancies has proved to be a very difficult task.
Even if the legal status of agrarian land is formally converted, a recalcitrant landlord
may be able to deny the farmer the full benefits intended. This gap between the
pronouncements of formal legislation and the realities for the tenant appears to be the
main reason why the legislative reforms introduced between 1963 and 1972 to bring
about meaningful agrarian reform achieved relatively little progress.
____________________[38] Rep. Act 6389 (1971) ["Agrarian Code"].
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D. Agrarian reform Program After Martial Law
Shortly after the declaration of martial law in the Philippines in Sept. 1972, a
series of Presidential Decrees on agrarian reform were pronounced. [39] The first of
these, Pres. Decree No. 2, [40] was issued to ensure equality of application of the agrarianreform laws for all regions in the country. It declared the entire territory of the
Philippines an agrarian reform area. As a result, the types of agricultural land covered
by the Agrarian Code in all the country's regions became subject to agrarian reform.
In a significant departure from the earlier government agrarian reform policy,
Pres. Decree No. 27 [41] was pronounced to convert small fanners who had been tenants
into owners of the land they cultivated. Under Pres. Decree No. 27, eligible tenant
farmers receive a Land Transfer Certificate, issued by the Secretary of Agrarian Reform,
for the land they occupy and cultivate, up to a maximum three hectares if irrigated or
five hectares if unirrigated land.
Though it goes further than the Agrarian Code in terms of property rights vested
in the small farmer, Pres. Decree No. 27 remains subject to several important
limitations. Chief among these is the fact that the new owners of the land must still
pay for it. This aspect of Pres. Decree No. 27 creates a new creditor-debtor relationship
in place of the previous landlord-tenant relationship. In addition, property taxes,
Samahang Nayon (village cooperative) membership dues and a local guarantee fund
must now be paid by the tenant-owner. Furthermore, Pres. Decree No. 27 applies only
to those lands which are primarily devoted to rice and corn production under a
landlord-tenant system of land tenancy. In practice, this requirement has been
interpreted narrowly by the DAR to mean that land planted to other types of food crops
and land under plantation management should be excluded from agrarian reform under
Pres. Decree No. 27.
____________________[39] Agrarian Code, supra, note 10, remained in force except as modified by these Decrees and other
executive orders.[40] Pres. Decree No. 2 (September 26, 1972), [ P.D. No. 2 ] [41] Pres. Decree No. 27 (October 21, 1972) [ P.D. No. 27 ]
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Pres. Decree No. 27 provides that tenant farmers falling under its application are
to be:
... deemed owner of a portion [of land] constituting a family-
size farm of five (5) hectares if not irrigated and three (3)hectares if ' irrigated.
No guidelines are provided in Pres. Decree No. 27 or any of its amendments for
the determination of which three or five hectares plots are to be transferred in Cases
where the tenant is cultivating an area larger than the maximum. A general formula is
provided, however, to assist in determining the price of any land to be expropriated,
as follows:
...the value of the land shall be equivalent to two and
one-half (2%) times the average' harvest of three normal years
immediately preceding the promulgation of [PD. No. 27].
The total price of the land expropriated for the benefit of tenants, as determined
by the above formula, is to be paid by the individual tenant who acquires the land.
Payment may be made over 15 years, in 15 equal annual amortization payments,
including 6% interest per annum. Local farmers' cooperatives act as guarantors of theamortization payments, in case of a default by their member farmers. In addition, Pres.
Decree No. 27 requires that the government guaranty the amortization payments
with shares of stock in government -owned and government- controlled corporations .
In order to secure the land transfer transaction more adequately, the Land Bank of the
of the Philippines, created by the Agrarian Code, has in practice compensated the
landowner and acted as an interim owner of the land during the amortization period.
The goals behind this policy are to minimize mortgage defaults, provide the landowner
with substantial immediate payment and eliminate the pernicious dependent
relationship between the tenant-owner and former landlord. [42]
____________________[42] Harkin, D., Strengths and Weaknesses of the Philippine Land. SEADAG Papers on Problems of
Development in S.E. Asia (May 1975).
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Although the Land Bank acquires agrarian reform acreage as interim owner, the
former landowner still does not receive immediate full payment in cash. An option is
provided for the landowner to elect immediate full payment of 10% of the land value
in cash and 90% in Land Bank bonds rather than using the Pres. Decree No. 27
amortization formula. This lessens the effect of inflation, which would reduce the
return to the landowner over a IS-year amortization period at the artificially low 6%
interest rate set by Pres. Decree No. 27. Most landowners affected by Pres. Decree No.
27 have in fact chosen this immediate payment option, according to the DAR.
After the small farmer has completed his payments to the Land Bank under Pres.
Decree No. 27, he has a perfected land title. However, title to the land may be
transferred subsequently only to the government or one heir. [43] This rather
paternalistic restriction is aimed at preventing the new owner from losing his title and
becoming a tenant again or from splitting the land up among many heirs into
uneconomic ally small units. Although Pres. Decree No. 27 made enforcement of
agrarian reform potentially easier to institute and enforce, the actual economic benefit
may not be as great as would seem for all types of tenants. Former leasehold tenants,
who gained significant rights under the Agrarian Code, would only benefit marginally if
at all from Pres. Decree No. 27. This seems to be the case because as owners they
would continue to make virtually the same payments during the IS-year amortization
period which they had as lessees. Under the Pres. Decree No. 27 scheme the former
leasehold tenants would also be faced with taxes and other charges, which would be
payable in addition to their amortization payments. Thus, it is questionable whether
the leasehold tenant should find the Pres. Decree No. 27 land ownership more favorable
economically than his secured leasehold under the Agrarian Code. The Pres. Decree No.
27 land transfer formula apparently was developed to benefit mainly sharecrop tenants
who did not have the security of land tenure afforded the leasehold tenant. However,in the process of improving the lot of the sharecrop tenant, the leasehold tenant's
position was perhaps worsened.
____________________[43] Harkin, D., Strengths and Weaknesses of the Philippine Land. SEADAG Papers on Problems of
Development in S.E. Asia (May 1975).
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Presidential Decree No. 27 contained other important ambiguities and gaps
which needed rectification through supplemental rules and regulations. By November
1972 a reasonably complete set of draft regulations had been prepared by the DAR for
use in implementing Pres. Decree No. 27. [44] Since no complete set of implementing
regulations have been adopted under Pres. Decree No. 27 to date, the draft regulations
have served as the only guidelines available for use by the DAR and its field offices. [45]
The draft regulations clarified several of the most basic potential problem areas
inherent in Pres. Decree No. 27. The conflict between the right of the landowner who
cultivates his land to retain up to seven hectares and the tenant's right to own the
portion of the land cultivated by him, was resolved by a compromise solution. Under
the draft regulations, the tenant may not be ejected from the landowner's retained
seven hectares until other land is made available to him. [46] This solution, while
maintaining the status quo, still fails to give the tenant the full benefit of owning the
land he cultivates. Instead, the status quo is maintained while the tenant waits in
uncertainty for relocation to a different, perhaps less desirable, plot of land.
Regarding the size of land tracts for purposes of transfer to tenants, the draft
regulations provided that all land owned by several members of a family was in effect
under joint ownership. Thus, any land owned by a family would be considered as asingle unit for purposes of Pres. Decree No. 27, unless subdivision or transfer of parts
of the land had been duly effected and registered before the issuance of Pres. Decree
No. 27. [47]
In his way, large landholders were prevented from utilizing the artifice of
dividing their land among family members into parcels too small to be covered by Pres.
Decree No. 27. Also, the draft regulations require a permit for changes in crops from
____________________[44] Harkin, D., Strengths and Weaknesses of the Philippine Land. SEADAG Papers on Problems of
Development in S.E. Asia (May 1975).[45] Id. See also Presidential Memorandum of November 25, 1972 (instructing the DAR to postpone
promulgation of the draft regulations).[46] Harkin, supra, note 14, at 5.[47] See DAR Memorandum of January 9, 1973.
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rice or corn to some crops not covered by Pres. Decree No. 27. Thus, landowners may
not circumvent the law by changing to sugarcane or coconuts; crops for which sharecrop
tenancy is still allowed under the Tenancy Act. These changes effectively eliminated
the possibilities for legitimate landowner circumvention of the law.
The actual implementation of Pres. Decree No. 27 has been relatively slow.
Transfer of 'lands down to the seven hectare cut-off point was required in stages of
100, 50, 24 and, finally, seven hectare plot, respectively. [48] However, the final decision
to extend land transfer down to the seven hectare limit was not announced until
November 1974. [49] Statistics indicate that most of the potential tenant beneficiaries
are located on plots of less than 24 hectares. [50] Thus, extension of agrarian reform
benefit to the largest number of tenants was not actually required until two years after
the issuance of Pres. Decree No. 27.
Another practical difficulty which has arisen with Pres. Decree No. 27, concerns
valuation of the land to be purchased by the tenant farmer. Apparently, the Pres.
Decree No. 27 formula [51] for pricing land was never exactly applied, although the
necessary data on crop values were collected by DAR field technicians. [52] For
undisclosed reasons, but most likely due to landowner pressure, the DAR has issued an
order instructing its field offices to fix the price of land by face-to-face bargaining,between landowner and tenant. Reversing the Pres. Decree No. 27 formula, this
bargained price was to be used to determine the value of average harvests from the
land. After being multiplied by 2.5, as required by Pres. Decree No. 27, the harvest
price would then yield the already fixed land purchase price. Obviously, this procedure
is less favorable for the tenant and more favourable for the landowner because of the
greater bargaining power of the latter. It also seems to be a curiously subjective
____________________[48] DAR Memorandum of January 2, 1973.[49] Harkin, supra, note 14, at 8. This decision was confirmed by the government in May 1975.[50] Id. at 11.[51] See p. 6, supra.[52] Harkin, supra, note 14, at 7. See Letter of Instruction No. 41 (November 27, 1972), which ordered the
collection of the necessary data. See also Letters of Instructions Nos. 45, 46 and 52 (1972).
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application of the Pres. Decree No. 27 formula, which is aimed at achieving some
objective determination of land values.
The two main shortcomings of Pres. Decree No. 27 and of the subsequent
Presidential Decrees amending it,[53]
lie in the failure to go beyond reform of a smallpart of the agricultural land in the Philippines and then lack of adherence to policy
objectives in the drafting of implementing regulations. The DAR has calculated that the
full implementation of Pres. Decree No. 27, all the way down to land plots of seven
hectares or more, would only benefit about 956,000 tenants occupying a land area of
1.5 million hectares. [54] This would represent only a fraction of the total agricultural
land area of the Philippines. Furthermore, there is uncertainty even as to how far the
already narrowed scope of Pres. Decree No. 27 will be pressed by the DAR. Letter of
Instruction No. 143, in fact, proposed a list of exempt categories for certain types of
landholdings between seven and 24 hectares. [55]
It should be noted that, even as drafted, Pres. Decree No. 27 encompasses less
land area than the Agrarian Code, as amended. The basic problem for the government
in the future will be how to continue extending the agrarian reform law, on the model
of Pres. Decree No. 27, to reach a larger number of tenant beneficiaries and ultimately
to cover all types of agricultural land throughout the entire land area of the Philippines.A new agrarian reform code has been drafted by the DAR and is currently under
____________________[53] The five Presidential Decree amendments to P.D. No. 27 were :
- Pres. Decree No. 57 (October 21, 1972) establishing commercial loans and other credit andguarantee facilities to finance tenant land purchases;
- Pres. Decree No. 84 (December 22, 1972~ authorizing the Secretary of Agrarian Reforms to signland transfer certificates for the President;
- Pres, Decree No. 85 (December 24, 1972) creating the Agrarian Reform Fund, consisting of thegovernment-owned stock and assets in certain public corporations;
- Pres. Decree No. 152 (March 13, 1973) prohibiting use- of share tenants on lands covered by thePublic Land Act;- Pres. Decree No. 266 (August 4, 1973) setting registration procedures for Land Transfer Certificates
issued under Pres. Decree No. 27.[54] Harkin, supra, note 14, at 2.[55] For example, possible types of exemptions suggested by Letter of Instruction No. 143 (1973), included
those for resident owners, retired government employees and landowners deriving their entire income from landrentals. Uncertainty about whether the President will grant these exemptions has resulted in a DAR policy ofpostponing action on land plots smaller than 24 hectares.
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consideration by the government. [56] It will be interesting' to see whether the beginning
made by Pres. decree No. 27 will be consolidated and extended if and when the new
code is enacted.
E. Is Agrarian reform a Failure in the Philippines? [57]
Agrarian reform programs have been enacted by different regimes for specific
reasons, albeit political motive has been the common one. As the objectives of such
reform had undergone changes over time based primarily on the socio-political context
prevailing in each period, the original intentions of the reform have also been subjected
to changes in each political regime. While the motive of the government in instituting
this reform deserves commendation; however, the reform laws have been tainted with
vested interest of the landed elite in enacting the law, making the reform
implementation difficult and derailed.
The political debacles between peasants and the landlords resulted into turmoil
and bloodshed, with the peasants as oftentimes the victims, politicized further the
reform. Let alone the high record of adjudication cases and court proceedings related
to agrarian reform prove that land distribution is not an easy task. We have witnessed
that we cannot ignore the vested interest of the landed elites in the historical agrarian
reform laws and programs in the country. Agrarian reform has become a polity reality,
and the politics played a significant role on the various policies & programs undertaken
in each regime more than the true concern of the plight of landless poor people.
The existing agrarian reform law (CARP) is obviously deficient in many aspects
which are detrimental to success. In the future, any land related policies therefore
must seriously take into account the market-orientation, administrative capacity,
budgetary requirement, the modality of land transfer, equity across gender, and themanner of its implementation. These issues are the causes why CARP is taking a long
____________________[56] Harkin, supra, note 14, at 6.[57] Is Agrarian reform a Failure in the Philippines? An Assessment on CARP. Limits of Good Governance in
Developing Countries.
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time. While the current reform may not be a complete failure; however, its deficiencies
and loopholes disrupt the efficient implementation thereby producing discontent and
disbelief.
Success stories of agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARB) are available, though athorough evaluation is necessary especially in correlating this to agrarian poverty issue.
But this success was only made possible because of external help and favorable
circumstances. In the post-agrarian reform regime, supportive institutions and inputs,
as part of agrarian reform policy, are vital in making the entire reform work. And this
support must be publicly supplied and government initiated. If the government is
lacking of its effort, the reform will fail to deliver the best outcomes that tackle equity
consideration and poverty reduction in the long run. Government should therefore
provide the necessary resources to the still frail ne w landowners to be able to adjust
in their new role. Only when they become stable and can stand on their own that they
can contribute to the other goals of development. Agrarian reform, after all, does not
end in giving lands to the landless. They need public support that will enhance the
effectiveness of the reform. We cannot just leave farmers in limbo without the
necessary safety nets.
Overall, the program entails serious challenge to succeed as an agenda onpoverty reduction of the government in the long run. While modest outcomes have been
observed in the current agrarian reform, in the future, however, more and more
agricultural households can no longer secure their livelihood from the land. In the post-
reform regime, as the case of many developing countries now, agrarian reform may
have not probably solved all the social, political and economic issues embedded in the
development agenda; however, it is still a crucial ingredient in improving the well-
being of poor rural people. After all, rural is still dominated by agriculture, and its
progress within the framework of agrarian development benefits local poor people and
tackles poverty in the long run.
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IV. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF AGRARIAN REFORM
Philippine history is marked by several major epochs including: prehispanic era;
about 300 years under Spanish colony (1565-1898); about 40 years under United States
rule (1898-1941); four years of Japanese occupation (1941-1945); and Independence
since 1946. All these epochs influenced culture and society in a way that affected the
land distribution. In essence, land distribution tended to become concentrated in
landed elites and large masses of peasants were displaced and became landless. [58]
A. Pre-Hispanic Era: Communal Ownership
The indigenous land-tenure arrangements in pre-Hispanic Philippine society were
characterized by communal ownership of land. Individual families had usufruct rights
to a parcel of land. In return families were required to perform various public services,
often consisting of assisting the datu in the tending of his fields and home. [59] There are
also indications that the Philippine social system in pre-Hispanic times was feudal like,
with a warrior class loyal to warlords. This class lived on the labor of serfs and slaves
in exchange for protection. The datus (chiefs) comprised the nobility who reigned over
a barangays. The serfs served a master or lord, who may have been a datu, and tilled
his land. Both master and serf equally divided the produce of the land. The serfscorresponded to the aparceros (tenants) of the late 19th century Spanish era. The slaves
served both the lord and master in both his house and farm. They were allowed some
share of the harvest, but they were their masters property. In the sub sistence economy
of the early Filipinos, rice served as the medium of exchange. [60]
____________________[58] Alberto Vargas. March, 2003. The Philippines Country Brief: Property Rights and Land Markets. Land
Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin Madison.[59] Riedinger, Jeffrey M. Agrarian reform in the Philippines: democratic transitions and redistributive
reform. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995. 366 p.[60] Alberto Vargas. March, 2003. The Philippines Country Brief: Property Rights and Land Markets. Land
Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin Madison.
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B. Effects of Spanish Colonialism
Fernando de Magellan landed in the island of Cebu in 1521 and claimed the land
for Spain. In 1565 Spain took control of the islands and named them in honor of Philip
II of Spain, who reigned from 1556 to 1598. [61]
During the Spanish colonial period, the concept of private land ownership was
introduced by the Spanish colonial government. Vast tracts of land were granted to
Spanish soldiers as reward for their loyal service to the Spanish Crown. Lands were also
divided and granted to encourage Spanish settlers.
These were called encomiendas. Encomiendas were granted in exchange of
defending the land from external attack, maintain peace and order within, and supportthe tasks of the missionaries. The encomendero acquired the right to collect tribute
from the natives. The tributes soon became land rents, and the people living within the
boundaries of the encomienda became tenants. The encomenderos became the first
hacendados in the country. Religious orders, mainly Dominc and Augustin became
owners of vast tracts of friar land which was leased to natives and mestizos. Meanwhile
the colonial government took the place of the datus. The datu was now called cabeza
de barangay, but it was the proprietors of the estates who held the real power in the
barangay or community. [62] Thus the most significant Spanish innovation concerning
property rights was the introduction of the concept of legal title to land, that is
private ownership . [63] These systems resulted to the accumulation of lands in the
possession of the elites and the dispossession of the mass of peasants of the land that
they and their ancestors had been tilling from time immemorial.
____________________[61] Alberto Vargas. March, 2003. The Philippines Country Brief: Property Rights and Land Markets. Land
Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin Madison.[62] Ibid.[63] Riedinger, Jeffrey. 1995 . Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. USA: Stanford University Press.
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1. Spanish Friars
To trace the origins of the Philippine land issue, one has to go back to the time
of Spanish colonialism beginning in the 1500s. It was during this period that land-related
system affected the islands for the first time. This was believed to be part of thecommon strategic outline of almost every colony. [64] The few reports about pre-Hispanic
times suggested that there had been some kind of social stratification and that
individual private property of land did not exist. [65] The first group of people that were
able to concentrate a large amount of land in its hands was the Spanish friars. [66] They
were beneficiaries of a series of royal land grants from the Spanish Crown. In later
times, the friars were able to enlarge their properties through lands passed to them by
way of mortgage claims and outright land grabbing, including donations or purchases
from Spanish laymen in the late seventeenth century. [67]
2. Encomienda System
As a result, the friars came in control vast areas of land on the island of Luzon,
especially around the capital of Manila by the end of Spanish colonial time. [68] Another
land related system that was utilized by the Spanish Crown in the early times of
colonization was the encomienda system. Encomiendas were distributed to Spanish
conquestadores and early settlers. An encomendero was empowered to collect tributes
from the natives living in the area of his encomienda but on the other hand had to
preserve peace within the territory and defend it for the Spanish Crown against possible
perpetrators. They also had to support clergymen in their missionary work. [69] However,
this encomienda system had already vanished from the islands before the
____________________[64] Putzel, James. 1995. Managing the Main Force: The Communist Party and the Peasantry in the
Philippines. Journal of Peasant Studies, 22 (4): 645 71.[65] Putzel, James. 1992. A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. Manila: Ateneo
de Manila University Press[66] Roth, Dennis. 1977. The Friar Estates of the Philippines. USA: University of New Mexico Press.[67] Constantino, Renato and Letizia R. Constantino. 1978. The Philippines: The Continuing Past. Philippines:
The Foundation for Nationalist Studies.[68] Roth, Dennis. 1977. The Friar Estates of the Philippines. USA: University of New Mexico Press.[69] Constantino, Renato. 1975. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Philippines: The Foundation for Nationalist
Studies.
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first haciendas emerged, as the late Spanish colonial time gave place to the rise of yet
other landed elite consisting of highly educated Chinese mestizos (children of Chinese
fathers and Filipino mothers), the relatively small number of Spanish mestizos and
descendants of the principalia, and the natives or Spaniards who had been officials in
the early colonial administration such as tribute collectors. [70]
In comparison to the Chinese mestizos, the Spanish mestizos were rather small
in number. Chinese traders reached the islands due to trading opportunities with the
Spaniards. They had soon established themselves in all areas of trade. [71] The mestizos,
who were soon able to accumulate a lot of wealth, filled the gap they left in the area
of trade. Being raised by their mothers as Filipinos, the mestizos blended culturally
with the natives. [72] They did not only concentrate in Manila, but also penetrated the
countryside and started to establish themselves in rural areas. When the ban on Chinese
immigration was lifted and they started to move back into the country, again taking
over their old positions, for the mestizos land as an object for investment became even
more interesting and large landholdings and haciendas began to emerge. [73]
The Spanish colonial period as a time of ongoing land concentration and the
cradle of land distribution patterns and tenure systems in the country. These were
characterized by peasants being share tenants or land laborers, the latter mostly foundin the younger plantations and haciendas devoted to cash crops and established mainly
during the time of American administration that followed the Spanish colonial time. [74]
In his arguments, Putzel [75][76] did not emphasize the differences and similarities
____________________[70] Riedinger, Jeffrey. 1995 . Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. USA: Stanford University Press.[71] Putzel, James. 1992. A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. Manila: Ateneo
de Manila University Press.[72] Constantino, Renato. 1975. The Philippines: A Past Revisited. Philippines: The Foundation for Nationalist
Studies.[73] Ibid.[74] Putzel, James. 1992. A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. Manila: Ateneo
de Manila University Press.[75] Putzel, James. 1992. A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines. Manila: Ateneo
de Manila University Press.[76] Putzel, James. 1995. Managing the Main Force : The Communist Party and the Peasantry in the
Philippines. Journal of Peasant Studies, 22 (4): 645 71.
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between land laborers and tenant-farmers within the framework of agrarian reform.
The image of peasants described by him suggests both the land laborers and share
tenants who were considered to be the landless poor at the time of legislation of various
agrarian reform laws. [77]
3. The Hacienda System
While at the beginning of the Revolution, the friars estates were already
challenged and subject of criticism, because these newly established haciendas
remained untackled for many years. [78] Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 19th century,
the Philippines as a colony of Spain implemented policies that would mainstream the
country into the world of capitalism. The economy was opened to the world market as
exporter of raw materials and importer of finished goods. The agricultural exports were
mandated and hacienda system was developed as a new form of ownership. [79] More
people lost their lands and were forced to become tillers. In the end, these haciendas
were found to be most resistant to agrarian reform measures and some of them are still
due for redistribution up to now. [80]
The most famous example is Hacienda Luisita (which has a total plantation area
of more than 6,000 hectares in Tarlac, Luzon), the landholding of the family of present
president Benigno Aquino III, and the sugar landholdings in Negros islands. The families
of the new landed elite who had gained wealth and land throughout the last period of
Spanish administration were able to keep and often deepen their economic power
including political power for their own interests. [81] They are still influencing much of
____________________[77] Jose Elvina. Is Agrarian reform A Failure in the Philippines? An Assesment on CARP. Part 3: Limits of
Good Governance in Various Facets of Developments.[78] Putzel, James. 1992. A Captive Land: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines . Manila: Ateneo
de Manila University Press.[79] Department of Agrarian Reform. FAQs on Agrarian Reform. Series of 2013[80] Carranza, Danilo T. 2004. Hacienda Luisita Massacre: A Tragedy Waiting to Happen. Unpublished.[81] Regalado, Aurora A. 2000. States Failure to Fulfill and Defend its Citizens Right to Food: The Philippine
Experienc e. Unpublished.
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the nations economy, political and social life, owning many of the biggest enterprises
of the Philippines. [82] This justifies on why agrarian reform takes centuries old, as the
elites passed on all this power to succeeding generations, a clear manifestation of
economic and political dynasty combined. Agrarian reform became more prominent
during the American colonial rule. The introduction of land related laws and programs
in this colonial regime unfold the redistributive aspect as introduced by the American
rulers. The subsequent various reform measures were more of a representation of polity
reality as a republic society and attempts to appease the growing rural unrest and
inequitable distribution of land resource. [83]
C. The End of Spanish Colonial Rule and the American Influence
Three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule ended with the Philippine war of
Independence in 1896. The skewed agrarian structure of the country has long been a
major problem, which originated from its 400-year history of colonization. Unequal land
distribution and, worse, landlessness, following the establishment of the haciendas and
the encomienda system during the Spanish period gave rise to numerous peasant
uprisings. [84] The feudal system established by the Spanish government which enslaved
the peasant class by Spanish landowners have brought suffering to the former. This
aggravated the desire of the Filipino peasants to explode the Philippine Revolution.
The revolutionary government confiscated the large landed estates, especially
the friar lands and declared these as properties of the government. [85] Philippine
independence however, was lost to the United States- a casualty of the Spanish-
American war in 1898. The United States involvement with Spains other major colony,
____________________[82] Ibid. pp 22.[83] Jose Elvina. Is Agrarian reform A Failure in the Philippines? An Assesment on CARP. Part 3: Limits of
Good Governance in Various Facets of Developments[84] Celia M. Reyes. Impact of Agrarian Reform on Poverty. Philippine Journal of Development, Number 54,
Volume XXIX, No. 2, Second Semester 2002[85] Malolos Constitution, 1896, Article XVII
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Cuba, brought an interest in the Philippines. At the beginning Filipino forces, under the
leadership of Aguinaldo, joined the Americans in the fight against Spain. However, once
Spain was defeated there was no support for Philippine independence from the part of
the United States. The American influence in the Philippines lasted for another four
decades. The American influence era saw little change in the patterns of elite-
dominated politics in the Philippines. Although colonial administrators acknowledged
the negative consequences of the prevailing patterns of landownership and distribution
of wealth, little was done to address these issues. [86]
____________________[86] Alberto Vargas. March, 2003. The Philippines Country Brief: Property Rights and Land Markets. Land
Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin Madison.
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V. THE FAIL