POLICIES OF

AGRARIAN REFORM
GROUP- C
 WHAT IS AGRARIAN REFORM?

• Agrarian Reform means 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 stocks, which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of
the fruits of the lands they work.
THE AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAM
OF THE PHILIPPINES
 AGRARIAN CONDITION IN PHILIPPINES:

• Implementation of Agrarian Reform in Philippines

The implementation of Agrarian reforms proceeded at a very slow pace. This was due to the lack
of political will. The redistribution of land was also very slow. Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Law: Philippines The Republic Act No. 6657, alternatively called the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Law was signed by President Corazon C. Aquino on 10th June, 1988.The Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Law is responsible for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian
Reform Program(CARP) in Philippines.
• The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law: Objectives The primary objective of
instituting the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform law was to successfully devise land
reform in Philippines. It was President Arroyo, who signed the Executive Order No.
456on 23rd August to rename the Department of Land Reform as Department of Agrarian
Reform. This had been done to expand the functional area of the law.
MEANING OF CARP

• CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) of 1988,also known as CARP, is a

Philippine state policy that ensures and promotes welfare of landless farmers and farm
workers, as well as elevation of social justice and equity among rural areas
 HISTORY OF AGRARIAN REFORM

• Agrarian reform is a 100-year history of unfinished reforms after the United States took over the
country from the Spaniards. Before the Hispanic period, there were no owner-cultivators, only
communal land owned by the barangay which consisted
• of a datu, freemen, serfs and slaves.
•  1. The Nobles- This social class could own their own land free from tribute payment.
• 2. The Serfs- They were entitled to cultivate certain land, but were required to pay an annual fee
of one-half of the yield of their crops to the Datu.
• 3. The Slaves- they simply served the Datu or the Nobles and they could be sold or traded.
 SPANISH PERIOD

• The system, however, degenerated into abuse of power by the encomienderos The tribute soon
became land rents to a few powerful landlords. And the natives who once cultivated the lands in
freedom were transformed into mere share tenants.
• The “Encomienda System” was introduced by the Spaniards. Encomienderos must defend his
encomienda from external attack, maintain peace and order within, and support the missionaries.
In turn, the encomiendero acquired the right to collect tribute from the indios (native).
• On the middle of 17th century “Encomienda System” was abolished due to abuses
committed by the Encomienderos. It was replaced by the “Cacique class”
• The Share tenancy or the “Kasama System” came also into existence. Large landholders
leased portions of their landed estates to intermediaries, who, in turn, rented out parcels to
peasants.
• The cacique class continues to grow due to inter-marriage with the Spaniards. They
gained stature with Spanish officials which gave them powers that they became more
oppressive. This results to rebellions during 18th century in Central Luzon.
AMERICAN PERIOD

• At the beginning of the period, Spanish land records that had existed were either
destroyed or lost, leaving the legal situation with regard to holdings very complicated.
• Philippine Bill of 1902 – Set the ceilings on the hectarage of private individuals and
corporations may acquire: 16 has. for private individuals and 1,024 has. for corporations.
• Land Registration Act of 1902 (Act No. 496) – Provided for a comprehensive registration
of land titles under the Torrens system.
• Public Land Act of 1903 – introduced the homestead system in the Philippines.
• Tenancy Act of 1933 (Act No. 4054 and 4113) – regulated relationships between
landowners and tenants of rice (50-50 sharing) and sugar cane lands.
THE PRESENT REPUBLIC

• After the establishment of the Philippine Independence in 1946, the problems of land
tenure remained. These became worst in certain areas. Thus the Congress of the
Philippines revised the tenancy law..
• In 1946, Pres. Manuel Roxas enacted RA No 34 of 1946, providing for a 70-30 crops
sharing arrangements and regulating share-tenancy contracts.
• September 1954, Pres. Ramon Magsaysay signed into law RA No. 1199, as amended by
RA No. 2263 which allowed for the division of the crops
• In 1963, Pres. Diosdado Macapagal signed into law RA No. 3844 otherwise known as
the Agricultural Land Reform Code, abolition of share tenancy and the imposition of
agricultural leasehold system.
• On September 21, 1972, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 2,
declaring the entire the Philippines as land reform area.
• On October 21, 1972, Pres. Marcos signed Presidential Decree No.27, “emancipating the
tenant-farmers from the bondage of the soil”.
• Under the New Constitution, the primary governing law on agrarian reform is RA No.
6657, otherwise known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988
POLICIES ON AGRARIAN REFORM

Republic Act No. 9700

• An act strengthening the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), extending
the acquisition and distribution of all agricultural lands, instituting necessary reforms,
amending for the purpose certain provisions of republic act no. 6657, otherwise known as
the Comprehensive Reform Law of 1988, as amended, and appropriating funds therefor
SECTION 1

Declaration of Principles and Policies

• It is the policy of the State to pursue a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program
(CARP). The welfare of the landless farmers and farmworkers will receive the highest
consideration to promote social justice and to move the nation toward sound rural
development and industrialization and the establishment of owner cultivator ship of
economic-size farms as the basis of Philippine agriculture.
SECTION 1

• “The State shall promote industrialization and full employment based on sound
agricultural development and agrarian reform.”
• “The State recognizes that there is not enough agricultural land to be divided and
distributed to each farmer and regular farmworker so that each one can own his/her
economic-size family farm.”
• “A more equitable distribution and ownership of land, with due regard to the rights of
landowners to just compensation.”
SECTION 1

• “The agrarian reform program is founded on the right of farmers and regular
farmworkers, who are landless, to own directly or collectively the lands they till or, in the
case of other farmworkers, to receive a just share of the fruits thereof.”
• “As much as practicable, the implementation of the program shall be community-based to
assure, among others, that the farmers shall have greater control of farmgate prices, and
easier access to credit.”
SECTION 1

• “The State shall recognize the right of farmers, farmworkers and landowners, as well as
cooperatives and other independent farmers’ organizations, to participate in the planning,
organization, and management of the program”
• “The State shall recognize and enforce, consistent with existing laws, the rights of rural
women to own and control land, taking into consideration the substantive equality between
men and women as qualified beneficiaries”
• “The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform, or stewardship, whenever applicable,
in accordance with law, in the disposition or utilization of other natural resources”
SECTION 1

• “The State may resettle landless farmers and farm workers in its own agricultural estates,
which shall be distributed to them in the manner provided by law.”
• “By means of appropriate incentives, the State shall encourage the formation and
maintenance of economic-size family farms to be constituted by individual beneficiaries
and small landowners.”
SECTION 1

• “The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities,
to the preferential use of communal marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore.
It shall provide support to such fishermen through appropriate technology and research,
adequate financial, production and marketing assistance and other services.”
• “The State shall be guided by the principles that land has a social function and land
ownership has a social responsibility. Owners of agricultural land have the obligation to
cultivate directly or through labor administration the lands they own and thereby make the
land productive.”
SECTION 1

• “The State shall provide incentives to landowners to invest the proceeds of the agrarian
reform program to promote industrialization, employment and privatization of public
sector enterprises.”
• “The State may lease undeveloped lands of the public domain to qualified entities for the
development of capital-intensive farms, and traditional and pioneering crops especially
those for exports subject to the prior rights of the beneficiaries under this Act.“
SECTION 2

Definitions
• Farmer refers to a natural person whose primary livelihood is cultivation of land or the
production of agricultural crops, livestock and/or fisheries either by himself/herself, or
primarily with the assistance of his/her immediate farm household, whether the land is
owned by him/her, or by another person under a leasehold or share tenancy agreement or
arrangement with the owner thereof.
• Rural women refer to women who are engaged directly or indirectly in farming and/or
fishing as their source of livelihood, whether paid or unpaid, regular or seasonal, or in
food preparation, managing the household, caring for the children, and other similar
activities."
SECTION 3

Scope
• The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 shall cover, regardless of tenurial
arrangement and commodity produced, all public and private agricultural lands as
provided in Proclamation No. 131 and Executive Order No.229, including other lands of
the public domain suitable for agriculture.
SECTION 3

"More specifically, the following lands are covered by the CARP:

"(a) All alienable and disposable lands of the public domain devoted to or suitable for
agriculture.
"(b) All lands of the public domain in excess of the specific limits as determined by
Congress in the preceding paragraph;
"(c) All other lands owned by the Government devoted to or suitable for agriculture;
"(d) All private lands devoted to or suitable for agriculture regardless of the agricultural
products raised or that can be raised thereon.
SECTION 4

Exception to Retention Limits

• Provincial, city and municipal government ,units acquiring private agricultural lands by
expropriation or other modes of acquisition to be used for actual, direct and exclusive
public purposes, such as roads and bridges, public markets, school sites, resettlement
sites, local government facilities, public parks and barangay plazas or squares, consistent
with the approved local comprehensive land use plan, shall not be subject to the five (5)-
hectare retention limit. Provided, That lands subject to CARP shall first undergo the land
acquisition and distribution process of the program: Provided, further, That when these
lands have been subjected to expropriation, the agrarian reform beneficiaries therein shall
be paid just compensation."
Review of Limits of Land Size
• Within six (6) months from the effectivity of this Act, the DAR shall submit a
comprehensive study on the land size appropriate foreach type of crop to Congress for a
possible review of limits of land sizes provided in this Act."
SECTION 5

Priorities
• The DAR, in coordination with the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council (PARC) shall
plan and program the final acquisition and distribution of all remaining unacquired and
undistributed agricultural lands. Lands shall be acquired and distributed as follows:
• "Phase One: During the five (5)-year extension period hereafter all remaining lands above
fifty (50) hectares shall be covered for purposes of agrarian reform upon the effectivity of
this Act.
• "Phase Two: Lands twenty-four (24) hectares up to fifty (50) hectares shall likewise be
covered for purposes of agrarian reform upon the effectivity of this Act, to implement
principally the rights of farmers and regular farmworkers, who are landless, to own
directly or collectively the lands they till.
• "Phase Three: All other private agricultural lands commencing with large landholdings
and proceeding to medium and small landholdings.
SECTION 6

• “Procedure for Acquisition and Distribution of Private Lands.”

SECTION 7

Determination of Just Compensation

• In determining just compensation, the cost of acquisition of the land, the value of the
standing crop, the current: value of like properties, its nature, actual use and income, the
sworn valuation by the owner, the tax declarations, the assessment made by government
assessors, translated into a basic formula by the DAR shall be considered, subject to the
final decision of the proper court.
SECTION 8

Order of Priority
• A landholding of a landowner shall be distributed first to qualified beneficiaries of that
same landholding up to a maximum of three (3)hectares each. Only when these
beneficiaries have all received three (3) hectares each, shall the remaining portion of the
landholding, if any, be distributed to other beneficiaries.
SECTION 9

Award to Beneficiaries
• The rights and responsibilities of the beneficiaries shall commence from their receipt of a
duly registered emancipation patent or certificate of land ownership award and their
actual physical possession of the awarded land. Such award shall be completed in not
more than one hundred eighty (180) days from the date of registration of the title in the
name of the Republic of the Philippines.
SECTION 10

Award Ceilings for Beneficiaries

• Beneficiaries shall be awarded an area not exceeding three (3) hectares, which may cover
a contiguous tract of land or several parcels of land cumulated up to the prescribed award
limits.
SECTION 11

Payment by Beneficiaries
• Lands awarded pursuant to this Act shall be paid for by the beneficiaries to the LBP in
thirty (30) annual amortizations at six percent(6%) interest per annum. The annual
amortization shall start one (1) year from the date of the certificate of land ownership
award registration. However, if the occupancy took place after the certificate of land
ownership award registration, the amortization shall start one (1) year from actual
occupancy. The payments for the first three (3) years after the award shall be at reduced
amounts as established by the PARC.
SECTION 12

Transferability of Awarded Lands.

• Lands acquired by beneficiaries under this Act or other agrarian reform laws shall not be
sold, transferred or conveyed except through hereditary succession, or to the government.
SECTION 13

Funding for Support Services

• In order to cover the expenses and cost of support services, at least forty percent (40%) of
all appropriations for agrarian reform during the five (5) year extension period shall be
immediately set aside and made available for this purpose: Provided, That the DAR shall
pursue integrated land acquisition and distribution and support services strategy requiring
a plan to be developed parallel to the land acquisition and distribution process.
SECTION 14

Support Services for the Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries

• The State shall adopt the integrated policy of support services delivery to agrarian reform
beneficiaries. To this end, the DAR, the Department of Finance, and the Bangko Sentral
ng Pilipinas (BSP) shall institute reforms to liberalize access to credit by agrarian reform
beneficiaries.
SECTION 15

Equal Support Services for Rural Women

• Support services shall be extended equally to women and men agrarian reform
beneficiaries.
"The PARC shall also ensure that rural women will be able to participate in all community
activities. To this effect, rural women are entitled to self-organization in order to obtain
equal access to economic opportunities and to have access to agricultural credit and loans,
marketing facilities and technology, and other support services, and equal treatment in land
reform and resettlement schemes.
SECTION 16

Support Services for Landowners

• The PARC, with the assistance of such other government agencies and instrumentalities
as it may direct, shall provide landowners affected by the CARP and prior agrarian
reform programs with the following services:
SECTION 16

• "(a) Investment information, financial and counseling assistance, particularly investment

information on government-owned and/or -controlled corporations and disposable assets
of the government in pursuit of national industrialization and economic independence:
• "(b) Facilities, programs and schemes for the conversion or exchange of bonds issued for
payment of the lands acquired with stocks and bonds issued by the National Government,
the BSP and other government institutions and instrumentalities;
SECTION 16

• "(c) Marketing of agrarian reform bonds, as well as promoting the marketability of said
bonds in traditional and non-traditional financial markets and stock exchanges:
• "(d) Other services designed to utilize productively the proceeds of the sale of such lands
for rural industrialization.
SECTION 17

The Presidential Agrarian Reform Council

• The Presidential Agrarian Reform Council(PARC) shall be composed of the President of the
Philippines as Chairperson, the Secretary of Agrarian Reform as Vice-Chairperson and the
following as members: Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture; Environment and
Natural Resources; Budget and Management; Interior and Local Government; Public Works
and Highways; Trade and Industry; Finance; and Labor and Employment; Director-General
of the National Economic and Development Authority; President, Land Bank of the
Philippines; Administrator, National Irrigation Administration; Administrator, Land
Registration Authority
SECTION 17

and (6)representatives of affected landowners to represent Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao;

(6)representatives of agrarian reform beneficiaries, (2) each from Luzon, Visayas and
Mindanao: Provided, That at least (1) of them shall be from the indigenous people:
Provided, further, That at least (1)of them shall come from a duly recognized national
organization of rural women or a national organization of agrarian reform beneficiaries with
a substantial number of women members: Provided, finally, That at least twenty percent
(20%) of the members of the PARC shall be women but in no case shall they be less than
(2).
SECTION 18

Quasi-Judicial Powers of the DAR

• The DAR is hereby vested with primary jurisdiction to determine and adjudicate agrarian
reform matters and shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all matters involving
the implementation of agrarian reform, except those falling under the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the DENR.
SECTION 18

• "It shall have the power to summon witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony, require
submission of reports, compel the production of books and documents and answers to
interrogatories and issue subpoena, and subpoena duces tecum and to enforce its writs
through sheriffs or other duly deputized officers. It shall likewise have the power to
punish direct and indirect contempt's in the same manner and subject to the same
penalties as provided in the Rules of Court.
SECTION 19

Exclusive Jurisdiction on Agrarian Dispute

• No court or prosecutors office shall take cognizance of cases pertaining to the
implementation of the CARP except those provided under Section 57 of Republic Act No.
6657, as amended. If there is an allegation from any of the parties that the case is agrarian
in nature and one of the parties is a farmer, farmworker, or tenant, the case shall be
automatically referred by the judge or the prosecutor to the DAR which shall determine
and certify within fifteen (15) days from referral whether an agrarian dispute exists.
SECTION 20

No Restraining Order or Preliminary Injunction

• Except for the Supreme Court, no court in the Philippines shall have jurisdiction to issue
any restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction against the PARC, the DAR, or any
of its duly authorized or designated agencies in any case, dispute or controversy arising
from, necessary to, or in connection with the application, implementation, enforcement,
or interpretation of this Act and other pertinent laws on agrarian reform."
SECTION 21

Funding Source
• The amount needed to further implement the CARP as provided in this Act, upon
expiration of funding under Republic Act No. 8532 and other pertinent laws, shall be
funded from the Agrarian Reform Fund and other funding sources in the amount of at
least One hundred fifty billion pesos (P150,000,000,000.00).
SECTION 22

Conversion of Lands
• After the lapse of five (5) years from its award, when the land ceases to be economically
feasible and sound for agricultural purposes, or the locality has become urbanized and the
land will have a greater economic value for residential, commercial or industrial
purposes, the DAR, upon application of the beneficiary or the landowner with respect
only to his/her retained area which is tenanted, with due notice to the affected parties, and
subject to existing laws, may authorize the reclassification or conversion of the land and
its disposition.
SECTION 23

Immunity of Government Agencies from Undue Interference

• In cases falling within their jurisdiction, no injunction, restraining order, prohibition or
mandamus shall be issued by the regional trial courts, municipal trial courts, municipal
circuit trial courts, and metropolitan trial courts against the DAR, the DA, the DENR,
and the Department of Justice in their implementation of the program."
 WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF AGRARIAN REFORM?

• Formalization of the administration of land rights has been promoted as a pre-requisite for
economic development. Perceived benefits include increased tenure security and improved access
to credit, thereby providing the incentive and ability for farmers to invest in making improvements
to the land.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF AGRARIAN REFORM PROGRAM?

• Its goals are to provide landowners equality in terms of income and opportunities,

empower land owner beneficiaries to have equitable land ownership, enhance agricultural
production and productivity, provide employment to more agricultural workers, and put
an end to conflicts regarding land ownership.