POLICIES ON

AGRARIAN REFORM
 It is essentially the rectification of the whole system of agriculture.

It is an important aspect of the Philippine economy because nearly half of the

population is employed in the agricultural sector, and most citizens live in
rural areas.

What is Agrarian It is centered on the relationship between production and the distribution of

Reform?
land among farmers.

It is also focused on the political and economic class character of the relations
of production and distribution in farming and related enterprises, and how
these connect to the wider class structure.

Through this, the Philippines would be able to gain more from its agricultural
potential and uplift the Filipinos in the agricultural sector, who have been, for
the longest time, suffering in poverty and discontent.
LANDOWNERSHIP IN
THE PHILIPPINES
UNDER SPAIN
 ◦ Pueblo Agriculture –where rural communities, often dispersed and
scattered in nature, were organized into a pueblo and given land to
cultivate.
◦ Families were not allowed to own their land –--the King of Spain
owned the land, and Filipinos were assigned to these lands to cultivate
them, and they paid their colonial tributes to the Spanish authorities in
the form of agricultural products.
◦ Through Law of the Indies, Spanish crown awarded tracts of land to:
◦ Religious orders

HIGHLIGHTS ◦ Repartamientos for Spanish military as reward for their service

◦ Spanish encomenderos---those mandated to manage the
encomienda or the lads given to them, where Filipino worked and
paid their tributes to the encomendero.
◦ Encomienda system –was an unfair and abusive system as “comparas
y vandalas” became the norm for the Filipino farmers working the
land---they were made to sell their products at a very low price or
surrender their products to the encomenderos, who resold this at a
profit.
◦ In the encomienda, Filipinos were also required to render services to
their encomenderos that were unrelated to farming.
 ◦ From this encomienda system, hacienda system developed
in the beginning of the nineteenth century as the Spanish
government implemented policies that would fast tract the
entry of the colony into the capitalist world.
◦ Agricultural exports were demanded and the hacienda
system was developed as a new form of ownership.
◦ In the 1860s, Spain enacted a law ordering landholders to
register their landholdings, and only those who knew
HIGHLIGHTS benefitted from this.
◦ Lands were claimed and registered in other people’s names,
and many peasant families who were “assigned” to the land
in the earlier days of colonization were driven out or forced
to come under the power of these people who claimed rights
to the land because they held a title.
◦ This is the primary reason why revolts in the Philippines
were often agrarian in nature.
◦ Religious orders, the biggest landowners in the Philippines,
also became a main source of abuse and exploitation for the
Filipinos, increasing the rent paid by the Filipinos on a
whim.
LANDOWNERSHIP IN THE
PHILIPPINES UNDER THE
AMERICANS
HIGHLIGHTS:
The Philippine Bill of 1902 –provides regulations on the disposal of public lands.
• A private individual may own 16 hectares of land while corporate landholders may have 1,024 hectares.
• Americans were also given rights to own agricultural lands in the country.

The Philippine Commission also enacted Act No. 496 (Land Registration Act) –--which introduced the Torrens system to
address the absence of earlier records of issued land titles and conduct accurate land surveys.

In 1903, the homestead program was introduced ----allowing a tenant to enter into an agricultural business by acquiring a farm
of at least 16 hectares.
• This was limited to areas in Norther Luzon and Mindanao, where colonial penetration had been difficult for Americans, a problem they inherited from the
Spaniards.

Not all friar lands acquired by the Americans were given to landless peasant farmers. Some lands were sold or leased to American
and Filipino business interest.

This early land reform program was also implemented without support mechanisms---if a landless peasant farmer received land, he
only received land, nothing more.
WHAT IS SAKDAL (SAKDALISTA)
UPRISING?
◦ It was a peasant rebellion in Central Luzon that lasted for two days, May 2-3, 1935.
◦ The word sakdal means “to accuse”, which is the title of the newspaper helmed by Benigno Ramos.
◦ He rallied support from Manila and nearby provinces through the publication, which led to the establishment of the Partido
Sakdalista in 1933.
◦ They demanded reforms from the government, such as the abolition of taxes and “equal or common” ownership of land.
◦ They also opposed the dominant Nacionalista Party’s acceptance of gradual independence form the U.S., and instead demanded
immediate severance of ties with America.
 POST-WAR
INTERVENTIONS
TOWARD
AGRARIAN
REFORM
HIGHLIGHTS:
Republic Act No. 34 –passed during the administration of President Roxas; to establish a 70-30 sharing arrangement
between tenant and landlord, which reduced the interest of landowners’ loans to tenants at six percent or less.

The government attempted to redistribute hacienda lands, falling prey to the woes of similar attempts since no support
was given to small farmers who were given lands.

Land Settlement Development Corporation (LASEDECO) –--was established under the term of President Elpidio
Quirino

• was established to accelerate and expand the resettlement program for peasants.
• This agency later on became the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) under the administration of
President Ramon Magsaysay.

Republic Act No. 1199 (Agricultural Tenancy Act) –was passed to govern the relationship between landholders and
tenant farmers, protecting the tenurial rights of tenants and enforced tenancy practices.
• Through this law, the Court of Agricultural Relations was created in 1955 to improve tenancy security, fix land rentals of tenanted
farms, and resolve land disputes filed by the landowners and peasant organizations.
HIGHLIGHTS:

Agricultural Tenancy Commission --was also established to

administer problems created by tenancy.

Agricultural Credit and Cooperative Financing

Administration (ACCFA) --was created mainly to provide
warehouse facilities and assist farmers in marketing their products.

The administration spearheaded the establishment of the

Agricultural and Industrial Bank to provide easier terms in
applying for homestead and other farmlands.
 PRIMARY SOURCE:
DECLARATION OF POLICY UNDER
RA. NO. 3844 (AGRICULTURAL
LAND REFORM CODE)
Source: Section 2. Declaration of Policy---It is
the policy of the State:
To establish owner-cultivatorship and the economic family-size farm as the basis of Philippine agriculture and, as a
consequence, divert landlord capital in agriculture to industrial development;

To achieve a dignified existence for the small farmers free from pernicious institutional restraints and practices;

To create a truly viable social and economic structure in agriculture conducive to greater productivity and higher farm income;

To apply all labor laws equally and without discrimination to both industrial and agricultural wage earners;

To provide a more vigorous and systematic land resettlement program and public land distribution; and

To make the small farmers more independent, self-reliant and responsible citizens, and a source of genuine strength in our
democratic society.
 HIGHLIGHTS:

This code abolished share tenancy in the Philippines and

prescribed a program to convert tenant-farmers to lessees and later
on owner-cultivators.

It also aimed to free tenants from tenancy and emphasize

ownership-cultivatorship and farmer independence, equity,
productivity improvement, and public land distribution.
 AGRARIAN REFORM
EFFORTS UNDER MARCOS
PRIMARY SOURCE: PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 27,
OCTOBER 21, 1972 (Code of Agrarian Reform of the Philippines)

Applied to tenant farmers of private agricultural lands primarily devoted to rice and corn under a system of sharecrop or
lease-tenancy, whether classified as landed estate or not;

Tenant farmer, whether in land classified as landed estate or not, shall be deemed owner of a portion constituting a
family-size farm of five (5) hectares if not irrigated and three (3) hectares if irrigated;

In all cases, the landowner may retain an area of not more than seven (7) hectares if such landowner is cultivating such
area or will now cultivate it;

The value of the land shall be equivalent to two and one-half (2 ½) times the average harvest of three normal crop years
immediately preceding the promulgation of this decree;

The total cost of the land, including interest at the rate of six (6) per centum per annum, shall be paid by the tenant in
fifteen (15) years of fifteen (15) equal annual amortizations;
 CONTINUATION:
In case of default, the amortization due shall be paid by the farmers’ cooperative in which the defaulting tenant-farmer is
a member, with the cooperative having a right of recourse against him.

The government shall guaranty such amortizations with shares of stock in government-owned and government-
controlled corporations;

No title to the land owned by the tenant-farmers under this decree shall be actually issued to a tenant-farmer unless and
until the tenant-farmer has become a full-fledged member of a duly recognized farmer’s cooperative;

Title to land acquired pursuant to this Decree or the Land Reform Program of the Government shall not be transferable
except by hereditary succession or to the Government in accordance with the provisions of this decree, the Code of
Agrarian Reforms and other existing laws and regulations
 CONCLUSION

“Operation Land Transfer” on lands occupied

by tenants of more than seven hectares on Rice self-sufficiency program (Masagana
rice and corn lands commenced, and through ‘99)--- farmers were able to borrow from
legal compulsion and an improved delivery banks and purchase three-hectare plots of
of support services to small farmers, agrarian lands and agricultural inputs.
reform seemed to be finally achievable.
POST-1986 AGRARIAN
REFORM
 HIGHLIGHTS
Proclamation 131 and EO 229 (July 22, 1987) –outlined her land reform program.

Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) or R.A. No. 6657 (1988) –passed by the Congress; introduced the
program with the same name (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP)
• Enabled the redistribution of agricultural lands to tenant-farmers from landowners, who were paid in exchange by the government
through just compensation and allowed them to retain not more than five hectares.
• Corporate landowners were allowed to voluntarily divest a proportion of their capital stock, equity, or participation in favor of their
workers or other qualified beneficiaries instead of turning over their land to the government.
• It only accomplished 22.5% of land distribution in six years owing to the fact that Congress, dominated by the landed elite, was
unwilling to fund the high compensation costs of the program.

CARP was speeded in order to meet the ten-year time frame, despite limitations and constraints in funding, logistics, and
participation of involved sectors (under the term of President Ramos)

By 1996, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) distributed only 58.25% of the total area target to be covered by
the program.

Republic Act No. 8532 (1998) ---amend CARL and extend the program to another ten years/
CARPER AND THE FUTURE
OF AGRARIAN REFORM IN
THE PHILIPPINES
 HIGHLIGHTS:
New deadline of CARP expired in 2008, leaving 1.2 million farmer beneficiaries and 1.6 million
hectares of agricultural land to be distributed to farmers.

Republic Act No. 9700 (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms—
CARPER, 2009)
• The amendatory law that extended the deadline of five more years.
• Section 3 mandated that any case or proceeding involving implementation of the provisions of CARP, as amended, which
may remain pending on June 30, 2014 shall be allowed to proceed to its finality and executed beyond such date.\
• CARPER distributed a total of 1 million hectares of land to 900,000 farmer beneficiaries (From 2009-2014)
• 500,000 hectares of lands remain undistributed (after 27, years of land reform and two Aquino administrations)
• DAR and DENR are the government agencies mandated to fulfill CARP and CARPER
ANY
QUESTIONS?