THE DEVELOPMENT OF POST WAR PHILIPPINE LAND

REFORM: POLITICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

By David Wurfel. In Second View from the Paddy, Antonio Ledesma, Perla
Q. Makil & Virginia A. Miralao, eds., Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo
de Manila, 1983
Introduction
The history of Philippine agrarian policy since independence is a sadly
monotonous one for the scholar, a bitterly disappointing one for the hopeful
tenant cultivator. It is a story of repeated initiative from the center of
government that did not result in anywhere near the announced change in
the countryside. Explanations for this series of ineffectual reforms have
varied from insincerity and corruption to lack of peasant interest in getting
ownership of the land. The most convincing analysis, however, seems to
relate to the political and economic interests of the top decision makers,
those initiating policy and supervising its implementations, and to the
socioeconomic characteristics of the agrarian systems being reformed. The
cumulative political consequences of agrarian policy also find both political
and socioeconomic explanations.
Agrarian reform is a complex of policies designed to transform rural society
in the direction of greater equality of wealth and power among groups and
classes, and greater equality of opportunity for individuals. Where agrarian
reform has followed a successful revolution it has usually involved the
uncompensated redistribution of land. A much more modest attempt at
transformation may be the creation of cooperatives in which small
cultivators are given greater opportunities than their large competitors. But
the type of reform on which we will focus here is the redistribution of
tenanted land with compensation to the original owner, land for which the
beneficiary of reform must repay the government. Despite all the
permutations in Philippine policy over more than 30 years, these basic
elements of land reform have remained constant: government purchase of
tenanted land and its resale to tenants.
Philippine land reform has been further restricted over the years to grain
crops: rice and corn-for domestic consumption. Export crops have

consistently been exempted, the official argument being that land reform
might disrupt production and thus jeopardize foreign exchange earnings.
Perhaps a more important reason, however, was that large landowners in
sugar, coconuts, and tobacco were politically too powerful to be touched.
The scope and nature of the reforms that were implemented posed no threat
to the interests of the political elite, but were, in fact, perceived as
strengthening their position. The changes in the content of reform from the
1940s to the 1970s indicated the waning influence of rice and corn
landlords within that elite.
Land Reform Under Roxas and Quirino (1946-1953)
Agrarian policy initiatives had for the most part begun in the 1930s under
President Quezon who was sensitive to the peasant unrest in Central Luzon
and wanted to appear to meet some of its demands, without too seriously
discomforting his landlord friends and allies. (His national political
organization depended on local leaders who were usually either landlords or
their proteges.) Components of that policy included regulation of tenancy
relations, organized land settlement in Mindanao for the landless of Luzon
and Cebu, the long-standing anti-usury law, issuance of free patents to
homesteaders on cultivable public land, and a landed estates policy which
provided funds for the negotiated purchase of large holdings for resale to
the tenants.1
Before World War II, the Rural Progress Administration (RPA) had
purchased tenant homesites on four estates and the agricultural land of two
more; the area of the six totaled to little more than 6,000 hectares. 2 The RPA
had also leased the huge 27,000 hectare Buenavista Estate with future
prospect of redistribution. But disputes about tenant rights abounded and
none had become amortizing owners. The American liberation of Manila
was terribly destructive of government offices, so that landed estate records
after the war were either chaotic or nonexistent.
Nevertheless, the acquisition of estates by the RPA resumed in 1947, so that
by 1950 another 19 had been purchased amounting to over 10,000 hectares
in addition to the vast Buenavista Estate. Over 3/4 of this area was owned
by some official or agency of the Catholic Church. Most of the land
acquired was in Central Luzon where the Huk rebellion made many villages

unsafe for landlords or their agents; much of the area was uncultivated.
Some of the estates were purchased from persons whose legal ownership
was in question. Clearly the landed estates policy was not land reform
primarily designed to transform tenants into owner-cultivators, but was a
social service agency for landlords with shaky titles or poor profit ratios.
Landlords who were opposed to appropriation were usually able to stop it in
the courts. In fact, it was RPA policy to discourage tenant petitions for estate
purchases by the impossible requirement that petitioners deposit an amount
equivalent to the assessed value of the land in question on the date the
petition was approved) The RPA was starved for funds, receiving no postwar appropriation; they operated largely with borrowed funds. Even when
landed estates were purchased, the cultivating tenant was not likely to be the
main beneficiary. Many of the estates had cash tenants who in turn sublet to
cultivating sharecroppers. The tenants who were allocated lots for purchase
often had farms of 10 to 50 hectares, while the average size of a cultivators
plot was under 3 hectares.3
Many of the cultivating tenants who were fortunate enough to acquire
purchase rights could not afford to keep them. Despite the explicit rules
against transfer, such rights had become a saleable commodity. Poor tenants
deeply in debt surrendered their rights to creditors. The same processes that
resulted in concentration of land ownership in the Philippines generally
operated within the government estates. Thus, large portions of the estates
under RPA administration continued to be cultivated by share tenants with
no prospect of becoming owners. The landed estates policy had simply
displaced some large landlords to create many medium sized ones. And
since the RPA, a government agency, became directly involved in the
burgeoning disputes over land rights, that traditional source of peasant
anger and frustration more quickly than before produced political unrest.
Not surprisingly the Bell Mission to the Philippines appointed by President
Truman in 1950 concluded that the land problem remains the same or
worse than four years ago.
The Bell Mission Report was, in fact, expected by many to be the impetus
for the next stage of land reform. It recommended that a broad program
should be inaugurated of acquiring large estates at fair value for resale in
small holdings to tillers of the soil. At the same time the report
recommended expanded programs of agricultural credit, organized land
settlement on virgin land, and the improved administration of land
registration and homesteading on public land. Each of these other

recommendations, less threatening to elite interests, was backed with some

U.S. aid, but not land redistribution. The U.S. land reform advisor drew up a
detailed proposal, but it was blasted by leading Filipino congressmen, and
not even supported by the U.S. aid mission. In fact, in 1950 the Rural
Progress Administration was abolished and its functions transferred to a
newly created landed Estates Division of the Bureau of Lands. No new
estates were purchased throughout the remainder of the Quirino
administration, and redistribution policy on RPA-acquired estates dropped
even the pretense of preference for the tiller. The simulation of land reform
was suspended in the early 1950s.
This was the same period in which the Huk rebellion peaked and then was
put down. The Liberal Partys political elite under Quirino certainly did not
view land reform as a cure for peasant unrest, though a number of
opposition figures did make the connection. Liberals were, in fact, even less
interested in land reform in 1953, when the Huks had been largely defeated,
than in 1950 when the rebellion was at its height. The election of Ramon
Magsaysay as president in 1953 made some difference in this regard,
however.
Land Reform Under Magsaysay and Garcia (1954-61)
Magsaysay had brought his campaign directly to the peasantry in a manner
unprecedented. After he was elected, several of his advisors understood the
importance of taking concrete action to meet peasant complaints and thus
reduce unrest. Since the landed estates policy remained in the Bureau of
lands, the aggressive new Undersecretary of Agriculture, Jaime Ferrer, had
an important role, as did some of the pro-tenant young officers in the
Tenancy Division of the Judge Advocate Generals Office. In two instances,
in San Luis, Pampanga and San Pedro Tunasan, Laguna, within a few
months of Magsaysays assuming the presidency, the Executive Office took
initiative directly to acquire landed estates. The landed Estates Division
began a number of negotiations and expropriations, and within the estates
they already administered, dramatically increased the rate of redistribution,
giving clear preference for the first time to cultivating occupants of the land.
All this activity clearly raised the expectation of tenants. During FY 1955
the Bureau of lands received 116 petitions for the expropriation of landed
estates covering more than 113,000 hectares.4

But those expectations could not be adequately met without new legislation
and new implementing agencies. The Inter-Departmental Committee on
land Tenure, appointed by the President in March 1954, worked at unusual
speed and produced a draft of the land reform bill by 6 May which was
immediately introduced into the House of Representatives. At about the
same time, however, legislation to improve landlord tenant relations was
introduced and this received priority attention. No action was taken on land
reform in the 1954 regular session, and it did not even appear on the agenda
of the special session of that year.
In his 1955 State of the Nation message Magsaysay did reiterate his desire
for new land reform legislation. But just as the President announced that he
would take land reform seriously, so did its opponents. At every stage of the
legislative process landlord interests attacked both directly and with subtle
indirection. Magsaysay was neither so persistent nor so skillful. He never
issued a public statement in favor of any portion of the bill. His only
significant effort was to call a special session with the land tenure bill as
highest priority. Nevertheless, the bill was almost scuttled at the conference
committee stage. The final legislative product was so inadequate that Atty.
Fernando Santiago, one of the authors of the first draft, sent a memo to the
President recommending that he veto it and ask for a simple appropriation
instead.5 Congressman Casas of la Union tried to amend the bills title at the
last minute, so that it would read ironically but accurately An act
defining a landlord tenure policy, Republic Act 14006, signed by the
President in September, had only one improvement over preexisting
legislation, a modest appropriation and authorization of a bond issue.
The power of expropriation was more restricted than it had been under
Commonwealth legislation. It was limited to that portion of individual land
holdings in excess of 300 contiguous hectares, and corporate holdings of
more than 600, though there were no such restrictions on negotiated
purchase. Petitions signed by a majority of tenants in the whole estate were
required to initiate an expropriation, or negotiations.
The Land Tenure Authority (LTA) established by the Act to implement this
policy, did not begin to actually function until January 1956; Magsaysay
had named a defeated Congressman to head it. In large part, perhaps,
because of the administrative reshuffle resulting from the closing of the
Landed Estates Division in the Bureau of Lands and transfer of its
personnel to LTA, the pace of activities slowed down in early 1956: only

one estate with 187 tenants was purchased. Within the same 6 months
petitions from tenants came in at a rate of one a day.7 Aspirations had
clearly been raised by the new Act, but were not being fulfilled. (Yet not all
such petitions could be regarded as indicative of pure tenant aspirations;
there were many cases in which tenants were manipulated by landlords
.who wanted to sell unproductive, partially idle or improperly titled land.)
Strangely enough, landlords sometimes seemed to favor expropriation over
negotiated sale. They had friends in court. The price set by courts in
expropriation proceedings were sometimes nearly double those of
negotiated settlements, disadvantaging the tenant who had to repurchase the
land at the same price. (Landlords were paid in cash and/or negotiable
bonds.)8 Rights of repurchase remained confusing with LT A policy often
failing to protect the actual cultivator.9 Only on estates where cultivating
tenants were well organized could they be assured of priority in land
redistribution, and most were not. Even when lots were allocated, and
before they were fully paid for, the transfer of rights for cash especially to
non-cultivators-was rampant.10 Nor could tenants on sugar estates expect to
benefit from LT A programs in any way; there was an informal
understanding that petitions for the expropriation of sugar land would not be
acted upon favorably.11
Despite confusions in implementation, the LTA increased the pace of land
acquisition several times over in FY 1957; seven estates were purchased.
The rising number of investigations in 1957 resulted in the acquisition of 18
estates in FY 1958 encompassing over 14,000 hectares with more than
5,200 tenants. But in March 1957 President Magsaysay died, succeeded by
his Vice-President, Carlos P. Garcia. Within a year many of the officials
committed to land reform left the Administration. In the next two fiscal
years only 6 estates were acquired, and corruption in the process became
more widespread.12
During the time of President Garcia there was what amounts to a stalemate
between landlords and their allies in Congress and in the executive
departments, and the elements favoring land reform.13 The hopes of
accomplishment raised in 1954 had again been dashed. Though other
agrarian programs may have somewhat improved the bargaining position of
the tenant vis--vis the landlord, only an insignificant portion of the nations
tenant farmers were on the way to becoming owners. The land acquired for
redistribution by the LT A in the first 5 years of its existence amounted to

less than 10 percent of the area of landed estates over ISO hectares in the
five provinces of Central Luzon alone!14
At the rate of progress maintained under Magsaysay and Garcia it would
have taken approximately 700 years to repurchase and redistribute the 1.8
million hectares of tenanted agricultural land in the Philippines. 15
The defeat of President Garcia in the 1961 election was not, therefore, a
great loss to the cause of land reform. Nor did it appear to be any particular
gain. It was hardly mentioned in the campaign, nor was it referred to at the
inauguration of the victor, Diosdado Macapagal. Though a congressman in
the 1950s, Macapagal had not participated in the land reform debate in
1954 or 1955, and had not even voted on the bill that became R.A. 1400.16
But in January 1963 President Macapagal appointed a special committee on
land reform, headed by Acting Secretary of Labor Bernadino Abes, to draft
what eventually came to be known as the Agricultural Land Reform Code
of 1963. It was introduced into Congress in March and adopted by both
houses in July. What had led the President to issue an emotional call in his
State of the Nation Address: We must give the tenants liberty from
economic peonage, in which they have long languished? In part it seemed
to be the arguments of his top economic advisor, Sixto Roxas, that land
reform was a necessary component of a strategy for rapid economic
development, permitting, for instance, the transfer of capital in land to
industry. It was also apparent to many that Macapagal intended to create
mass support among tenants, thus insuring his reelection.17 Nor was he
unresponsive to the views of American advisors.
Macapagal was not the popular leader Magsaysay was, coming into office
on a wave of proreform sentiment. But Macapagal was a much more skillful
strategist, using successfully what influence he had to gain early passage,
even though the Senate was not under his partys control. He had appointed
Federation of Free Farmers leader Jeremias Montemayor and Philippines
Free Press editor Teodoro Locsin to his special committee, thus helping to
provide some active support for his legislation in the press and from tenant
groups. And when the legislation had not yet been passed by Senate at the
end of the regular session, he called seven special sessions of a few days
each until it was adopted, helping to direct tactics from Malacanang.

The Land Reform Code of 1963 was the most comprehensive piece of
legislation ever enacted in the Philippines on the subject. It reorganized and
strengthened land settlement, small farmer credit, the dissemination of new
agricultural technology, legal assistance to tenants and small farmers, and
created a structure for better coordination of all these functions, as well as
dealing with land reform more narrowly defined. A Land Authority was
created to take over most of the activities of the LTA and a Land Bank was
established to handle the financial aspect of land acquisition.
Though the initial bill was somewhat weakened before final passage, the
emasculation was nowhere nearly as great as in 1955. The most serious
excision was the chapter on land taxation which would have imposed a
progressive tax based on assessment of potential productivity and could
have greatly improved collection. A major incentive for landlords
acceptance of government purchase and redistribution was thus lost.
The Code had several advantages over previous legislation, especially the
authorization for the Land Authority to acquire estates of more than 75
hectares, whether owned by individuals or corporations, removing the term
contiguous. However, the earlier absence of any effective restraints on
landlord evasion by transforming land use or transferring ownership to
family members remained. And while in 1955 sugar and coconut were
excluded from land reform by tacit agreement, in 1963 this exclusion was
made legislatively specific, with fruits and other crops added to the list.
Furthermore, the provision that the National Land Reform Council needed
to declare all government agencies dealing with land reform fully operative
in a region before implementation could begin was, while logical from one
standpoint, an additional juncture at which landlord pressure and
bureaucratic wrangling could delay any action.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy, however, was that after President Macapagal
had shown considerable political sophistication in getting the Code enacted,
he was lax in pushing its implementation. It. was a dramatic example of the
politics of symbolism that has so permeated Philippine public affairs. It was
as if Macapagal, having signed an important document, found little
compulsion to act on it. The new agencies established by the code were not
fully operative until March 1964.18 As late as 1966 no agricultural land had
yet been purchased under the terms of the Code!19 Even under the
provisions of previous legislation in the 2 years following enactment of the
Code only 1,610 hectares were purchased, or less than the annual average

under Magsaysay and Garcia.20 A few months before the November 1965
election Macapagal panicked, and made vigorous efforts to implement the
Code.21 But it was too late to turn the political tide against him.
President Marcos came to office, like his immediate predecessor, without
any record of interest in land reform. The fact that machinery for
implementation was established by his defeated rival may have caused him
to be even less enthused. Certainly the commitment of funds was modest.
None other than Conrado Estrella, appointed chairman of the Land Reform
Council by Marcos and later secretary of the Department of Agrarian
Reform, called attention in early 1972 to the fact that in 1965 the total
appropriation for all land reform agencies was PI56 million, but that out of
this amount only 20 percent was released. This trend has continued
through the years. The proportion of the amount released against
appropriations ranged from 20 to 30 percent. In 1971 only 24 percent
[was] released from an appropriation of PI82 million.22 As of September
1971 land reform, had not even been proclaimed in more than 236 of the
nations 1,506 cities and municipalities (varying in size from a country to a
township), Agricultural land purchase and redistribution had fallen to a low
level: during the first 4 years of the Marcos presidency approximately 2,600
hectares had been purchased by the Land Authority and another 1,500 by
the Land Bank, or about 1,000 hectares per year. Though slightly above the
pace of activity in Macapagals last 2 years in office, this was only {%} of
the annual average during the Magsaysay/Garcia years.
The way in which Mr. Marcos won reelection in 1969 with charges of
massive fraud, inducement and intimidation, triggered a political reaction
that had a profound impact on the national attention to and perception of
land reform. It marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of
Philippine agrarian reform.
Land Reform Since 1971
The raucous demonstrations that accompanied President Marcos second
inauguration marked the tenor of the times. Students were aroused and were
making common cause with tenants and trade unionists. The only positive
response in the Presidents State of the Nation address was a proposal to sell
military camps near Manila to generate funds for land reform. Later special
committees in both chambers of Congress conducted hearings which heard

representatives of peasant groups and land reform Agencies.23 On 5 May as

a consequence of those hearings, omnibus bills were introduced to promote
land reform in both the Senate and the House, but the problems and costs
which became associated with the idea of selling military land scuttled that
plan. For the first time in Philippine history legislative initiative on land
reform did not come from the President, but resulted in large part from
popular clamor heeded by Congress.
The Senate bill was favored by peasant organizations since it incorporated
their demands for a lowering of the retention limit to 24 hectares and a
prohibition on the creation of subdivisions or the resumption of personal
cultivation (through wage laborers) as justification for the ejection of
tenants, and thus avoidance of land reform. (Both were widespread
practices since 1955.) They were less enthusiastic about the Estrel1afavored bill to create a Department of Agrarian Reform. But the regular
session ended without any land reform related bills being passed. The first
and second special sessions saw little progress either, and before the third
special session was called a meeting of Congressional leaders with the
President agreed to strike land reform from the agenda.24 It was decided to
suspend action on land reform while a special committee conducted an indepth study, submitting its report to the regular session beginning in January
1971. Peasant and student groups were angry.25 Jeremias Montemayor,
President of the Federation of Free Farmers, questioned the sincerity of
President Marcos for saying that land reform would become the epicenter
of all government activities.
Soon after the January regular session began sitting, debate on land reform
was again suspended to refer the matter to another subcommittee, chaired
by Senator Salvador Laurel. The peasant-favored Senate Bill 478 was
amended, omitting the lowered retention of 24 hectares. Despite 2 days of
demonstrations at Malacaftang in May by 5,000 farmer-members of the
Cooperative League of the Philippines, demanding to see the President, the
regular session ended without land reform legislation having been certified
as urgent.26 Both peasant leaders and progressive legislators increasingly
blamed the President for inaction.
With the calling of the first special session of 1971 there was launched a
unique form of political action, the live-in picket. On 1 June hundreds of
small farmers, supported by students, priests, nuns, and urban trade unions,
encamped in front of the Congress building to insist on effective reform

legislation. At the beginning of the second special session, when legislative

action on land reform was still far from complete, the demonstration had
already lasted for 2 months.27 Peasant organizations, especially the Free
Farmers, brought in buses and jeeps loaded with tenants from villages as far
as 200 kilometers away. During each legislative day small groups badgered
individual Congressmen demanding to know how they would vote on each
article of each pending land reform bill, and why, and explaining the
importance of the reforms proposed. Members of Congress had increasing
difficulty in handling this unprecedented pressure. In the early days of the
second special session they began to question the legality of such action;
debates on land reform were even suspended, to reinforce the demand that
demonstrators abandon their round-the-clock picket.28 But the picketers
only gained greater mass support. Representatives of the Philippine Public
School Teachers Federation joined the demonstration. The 87,OOO-member
Philippine Federation of Labor threatened to strike nationwide if farmer
demonstrators were evicted from the Congress building.29 Finally on 9
August House Speaker Villareal announced that the leadership had decided
to withdraw their demand for the pickets removal and to resume debate on
land reform. Said a spokesman for the Philippine Congress of Trade Unions,
this proved that democracy, if given a chance, can still work in this
country. One observant Congressman threw light on the motivation for the
turnabout when he commented, those who would evict the demonstrators
would be doing exactly what the Russian aristocracy did just before the
October revolution began 30 From then on debate on land reform,
especially in the House, was more constructive. Two bills had been enacted,
R.A. 6389 and R.A. 6390, when the fifth special session ended on 5
September.

creating a Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) received consistent

Administration backing.

Unlike every experience in the past, the final version of the first piece of
1971 land reform legislation was in some ways more favorable to the tenant
than the first. Certainly lowering the retention limit to 24 hectares and
preventing landlords from claiming personal cultivation or subdivision as
an excuse for ejectment of tenants would not have survived the legislative
process without intense peasant pressure. Furthermore, the piecemeal
approach was ended and the whole country was declared a land reform area.
R.A. 6390, the funding bill, was more disappointing, providing
appropriation for on1y P50 million, no higher than the funding level in the
previous few years, and much less than the original Senate bill. It was, in
fact, the Presidents intervention which tipped the scale for the much more
modest figures in the House version.31 Only the provision in R.A. 6389

In the decrees preamble President Marcos hinted at one of the motivations

for this emphasis: Inasmuch as the old concept of land ownership by a few
has spawned valid and legitimate grievances that gave rise to violent
conflict and social tension, the redress of such grievances [becomes]
one of the fundamental objectives of the New SocietyThe fear of
agrarian unrest, and Communist leadership thereof, was certainly the
explanation for the fact that only 2 weeks after martial law had been
declared, Dr. Roy Prostermann, of the University of Washington, author of
the

There are two major conclusions to be drawn from this legislative history.
The more general one was articulated by both conservative solons and
radical peasant leaders: the democratic process works, the people may
peaceably assemble to redress their grievances. More specifically, genuine
progress toward land reform was possible through Congress if small
farmers were organized. Neither of these conclusions was consistent with
the contentions in September and October 1972 that only through the setting
aside of Congress and presidential rule by decree could genuine land reform
be accomplished. The evidence of peasant mobilization in 1971 and the
implications it had for the future of the Philippine political system, were
undoubtedly factors that helped President Marcos decide to reduce mass
participation through Martial law. (A fuller explanation for the abrupt
transition in September 1972 to authoritarian rule must be found elsewhere,
however.)
Presidential Decree No. 27
In the early years of martial law agrarian reform was given great
prominence. One month after its declaration the President issued
Presidential Decree No. 27 for the emancipation of the tiller from the
bondage of the soil. And on the first anniversary of P .D. 27 he went so far
as to say: land reform is the only gauge for the success or failure of the
New Society. If land reform fails, there is no New Society. 32

1970 land reform in Vietnam (and the subsequent program in El Salvador)

arrived in the Philippines with a draft decree in his pocket. (His draft

influenced but did not determine the final document.) About the same time,
Executive Secretary Alejandro Melchor was in Washington trying to justify
martial law on the grounds that it was necessary for the quick
implementation of broad social reforms. But for the President himself, land
reforms most important political function was to strike a blow at the
oligarchy, those wealthy elite who had formed the core of his political
opposition. Not surprisingly the Aquino estates were among the first to be
expropriated. The subsequent pattern of implementation helped to confirm
this interpretation. The President simply lost his originally keen interest
after the owners with more than 100 hectares had been dispossessed.

corn tenants. By 1980, DAR claimed to have issued CLTs to 90 percent of

the targeted tenants, but best estimates are that nearly half of those printed
in Manila never actually reached the hands of the cultivator.

In sum, the political purpose of land reform and its ancillary policies was to
create mass support for the New Society and its leader, legitimize him
abroad, and undermine support for alternative leadership on both the right
and the left. Since great estates in sugar, coconut and other export crops
were excluded from its coverage in any case, it is probably fair to say that in
the long run none of these goals were accomplished. In the first few years of
martial law, however, agrarian policy did help create support for Marcos in
the countryside, blunted foreign criticism of his regime, and put the landed
elite on the political defensive.

Delay in fixing the price, and delinquency in amortization resulted from the
fact that instead of setting land price on the basis of production as the
decree provided, landlords were allowed to negotiate with tenants and DAR
field officials sometimes aided the landlord, already the stronger party. On
other occasions, to be sure, when DAR officials stood up for tenant rights
under the law, they were verbally threatened or judicially harassed by
landlords. Many DAR officials had court cases initiated against them for
merely doing their duty.35 Landlord foot-dragging could postpone a pricing
agreement indefinitely. Thus by 1977, the average price per hectare being
paid by the tenant of nearly P7,000 was 44 percent higher than it would
have been if it had been based on the average yield as reported by the
Ministry of Agriculture.36 Since land Bank bonds could be sold for cash by
landlords, at a discount to be sure, in order to make other investments, or
could be invested in approved projects at face value, the loss of land usually
did not involve a significant loss of wealth. By 1980, 5,860 landowners had
been paid by the Land Bank an average of P207,347 each.

In principle P.D. 27 was a great improvement over previous legislation

because all rice and corn tenants whose landlords owned more than 7
hectares were to be sold the land they tilled at a price 2 1/2 times the
average annual production; they were given 15 years to pay the land Bank
at 6 percent Interest. No tenant initiative was required. When the tenant
fully paid, and only then, he would receive a title transferable exclusively to
his heirs. (Landlords were to be paid 10 percent in cash and 90 percent in
Land Bank bonds.) In the meantime the eligible tenant would receive a
Certificate of Land Transfer (CLT) identifying his cultivated area and
promising him the right to purchase the land.
The number of tenants to benefit from this decree quickly became a
controversial question. In the first month the Department of Agrarian
Reform (which had already been created before martial law) announced that
over I million tenants tilled 1.44 million hectares of rice and corn land. But
research in 1975 established that 57 percent of tenants farmed land owned
by persons with less than 7 hectares. Subsequently DAR announced that
based on its own field identification, its goal was to service more than
390,000 tenants on 730,000 hectares, or little more than 1/3 of all rice and

CL T holders were still being asked to pay rent to their landlords. Not until
the price of the land was fixed and the tenant began to pay installments to
the land Bank was he an amortizing owner. Only 86,500, or 22 percent of
the target, had reached that stage; and of that number only 1,667 had
completed payments early and become full owners.33 Most amortizing
owners were delinquent.34

The net result of land redistribution was to put more than 86,000 tenants on
the road to ownership (with only 2 percent completing the process); while
this was less than 9 percent of a very conservative estimate of all rice and
corn tenants, it was, nevertheless, a greater accomplishment than in any
previous administration. However, since the announcement and the early
stages of implementation gave the vast majority of all tenants a feeling that
they personally were going to benefit, the consequence was that for every
farmer who was grateful to the government for having achieved a new
status, and perhaps improved income, there were many resentful that their
hopes had been frustrated. Probably the thousands of tenants who first
received CLTs, and then had them recalled either because of simple
bureaucratic confusion or because of landlord intervention were most

upset. Though the thousands more who were illegally ejected from their
tenant holdings in 1972-74 by foresighted landlords wishing to evade the
reform may have been at least equally frustrated.
The slow pace of implementation was due partly to a chronic bureaucratic
complaint, lack of personnel because of lack of budget. Even though there
was a real increase in funds (even after compensating for inflation) for
agrarian reform between FY 1973 and FY 1977, the priority for the Ministry
of Agrarian Reform within the total national budget continued to slide,
however. In 1973 it was 0.8 percent of the total, in 1977 only 0.7 percent
and in 1981 down to 0.5 percent).37 More serious, however, was the delay,
and even retreat, in the face of landlord pressure by top decision makers.
Nor was this the result of inattention by the President; Minister of Agrarian
Reform Conrado Estrella, who remained in office from before the
declaration until after the lifting of martial law, boasted of easy access to
President Marcos to consult on problems within the ministry. There was
apparently a feeling in Malacanang that more was to be gained politically
by easing the pressure on landlords (especially those with less than 24
hectares) than by pushing through to the full extent of the law. Foreign
analysts, however, were more inclined to conclude that half measures were
worse than none at all, i.e., that incomplete reform raised expectations and
thus intensified the frustration of those who did not benefit. Revolutionary
political organization in the countryside by 1981 would seem to have
justified that conclusion. Some prime land reform areas had become bases
for the Communist-led New Peoples Army (NPA).
In any case, government spokesmen did not bother themselves with trying
to explain shortcomings; they proclaimed complete success. The
government-owned Philippine News Agency release on the eve of the 8th
anniversary of P.D. 27 stated: 359,000 farmers now own the land they till
via the issuance of 501,364 certificates of land title [sic]. The figures
represent 82 percent of the total target.38 The previously subtle attempt to
equate CL Ts with titles had lost its subtlety. Some foreign publications used
the language of the release, thus perpetuating the gross inaccuracy. Even
AID officials in Washington bought this line, though their Philippine
specialists knew otherwise. The AID presentation to the House Foreign
Affairs sub-Committee on Asia and Pacific Affairs hearings in Washington
in March 1981 reported flatly that 88 percent of eligible families had
received land titles under Philippine agrarian reform.39

Conclusion
To look at the sweep of policy over more than 30 years raises the very basic
question whether conservative land reform is possible, i.e., whether the
announced goals, to transform cultivators into owners, can be accomplished
by any regime dominated by men of great private wealth. Does its
achievement either require a period of foreign domination, as in Japan, or a
prior sociopolitical revolution, as in China? Or, posed another way, does the
goal of peasant ownership require rapid industrialization as the context for
agrarian change, as in Japan? And is the only alternative agrarian revolution
that ultimately denies the principle of cultivator ownership anyway, as in
China? Perhaps farmer owners are a transitory breed in any case; both Japan
and Western societies that were long based on peasant ownership are seeing
the rise of the corporate farm.
These questions lead us into the broad field of comparative history,
fascinating, but sometimes speculative. The questions which are more
directly related to the historical survey of Philippine land reform policy here
presented are: Why was this type of policy enacted? Why was
implementation so consistently frustrated? And what are the political
consequences of such programs?
It is abundantly clear that until 1911 peasant demands had no direct effect
on policies enacted. Thus heroic rhetoric, e.g., The evolution of the various
land reform legislations since 1905 is the story of accumulated piecemeal
concessions bitterly fought for by the Filipino peasantry, sometimes lacks
historical accuracy.40 The presence of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF)
president on Macapagals special committee gave an opportunity for a
peasant leader (balanced by an influential landlord on the same committee)
to present his ideas in the drafting process. But peasant mobilization was
insignificant; thus it was only the perceptions of the political elite about
possible future peasant reactions that affected policy. And those perceptions
were important to decision makers primarily as they entered into broader
calculations of self interest, i.e., how elite interests are influenced by
peasant reaction.
Insofar as peasant protests were violent, and constituted a threat to system
stability, they stimulated concern within the elite, though without legislative
consequence at least until the 19205.41 As early as 1933, however, the Rice

Share Tenancy Act may be seen to be a kind of response to the furious

Tayug uprising of January 1931. The more extensive peasant mobilization
in Central Luzon of the late 1930s frightened President Quezon into
launching the landed estates policy, though the more short-sighted members
of the National Assembly effectively hamstrang other agrarian reform
measures. Ultimately, Quezons desire simultaneously to placate both
landlords and tenants pleased neither, and in 1941 rural class conflict
was more acute than ever.42 This characterization of the 1930s aptly fits, as
we shall see, the interactions in later stages of land reform policy.
The Roxas Administration, the first after independence, was closely linked,
as had been Quezon, to the landed elite of Central Luzon. Its response to the
rising Huk Rebellion was the mailed fist, thus contributing to
mobilization of the peasantry by the left. Roxas Vice-President and
successor, Elpidio Quirino, was himself from the Ilocos region and was
therefore less closely tied to the great landowners of the Philippines
ricebowl. He saw some political advantage in wooing the dissidents,
called for a cease-fire, granted amnesty to the Huks and seated Taruc in
Congress. But the accumulated distrust was too great; militants on both
sides sabotaged the cease-fire and the guerrilla movement was resumed.
Under U.S. prodding, Quirino did attempt, however, to mount some
agrarian reform programs except for land reform. The Hardie Report from
the U.S. aid mission, which proposed a sweeping land redistribution, was
branded as communist by vehement congressmen, undoubtedly speaking
for the landed elite. Land reform had to wait until after the election of
Magsaysay.
In the Magsaysay Administration the elite composition again changed,
bringing in younger, and more middle class elements, dedicated to solve the
underlying problems that caused unrest. Magsaysay himself had aroused the
expectation of reform among the masses. But Magsaysay was, in politics, a
tactical neophyte. And the landed interests in Congress were still strong.
Since he delayed more than a year in pushing land reform legislation, the
threat of the Huk Rebellion had drifted into the hazy past for most
parliamentarians they lost interest in forestalling unrest. Community
development was a more comfortable concept, without implications of
class conflict; it was thus a high priority program. Garcia, who became
president on Magsaysays death, was fortunate to inherit a relatively
tranquil society, which could afford an interlude of old fashioned politics.

Macapagal had indeed grown up a poor boy, but he had been co-opted by
the landed Pampanga elite. His sudden conversion to the virtues of agrarian
reform in 1963 is thus all the more surprising. Certainly he was respectful
of American advice, and like every other Filipino politician adored the
prospect of new agencies to fill with his appointees, and the Agricultural
Land Reform Code created several of them. But his reaching out for mass
support on the land reform issue was a harbinger of change in the Philippine
system, a harbinger of trends that many thought had died with Magsaysay.
But Macapagal started too late in the building of a new mass base to
succeed.
With Marcos during his first term, as with Garcia, there was little interest
shown in land reform. There were no new agencies to staff and Central
Luzon was comparatively quiet. The quiet was deceptive, however, and by
the end of the 19605 a new rebellion had been launched by the New
Peoples Army. The landed elite was not as influential in Congress as it once
was and peasant organizations were larger and more politically skilled than
ever.43 For the first time they had the commitment, the leadership and the
allies to put direct pressure on Congress for reform..
The reaction of Marcos to the land reform debate of 1971 is curious. He was
certainly not displeased with the prospect of a new administrative structure,
the Department of Agrarian Reform, which would allow him to make new
appointments. But his negative approach to other peasant demands reflected
either a serious miscalculation of the changing political realities or a hidden
agenda. One could almost imagine that there was a desire to see land reform
efforts in the Old Society frustrated, while plans for the unveiling of the
New were being quietly laid down. His discomfort with the oligarchy
was already apparent, thus his posing as the champion of land reform might
have seemed appropriate. But that role was saved until after the declaration
of martial law. And when the purposes of land reform after 1972 seemed to
enjoy short-term success, the program was allowed to languish.
Tai has quite rightly pointed out that political elites initiate land reform to
gain political legitimacy, i.e., to strengthen popular support for a new
political order or to safeguard an existing regime against threatened political
changes.44 The first case may fit land reform after martial law, and the
latter is typical of the earlier examples. Tai continues, Elites are sensitive
to the danger that in initiating reform they may immediately encounter the
opposition of the landed class but only slowly gain the support of the

peasants. Conceivably, they may lose the loyalty of the former before
gaining that of the latter. In fact, this sensitivity is sometimes developed
only after the reform process has begun, thus inclining the same leadership
which initiated it to leave it half finished. (This seemed particularly
apparent in the Philippines in the late 1970s.)
The incomplete reform is also a function of the nature of the Philippine
political elite. It is in Tais classification a conciliatory elite, 45 one in
which landlord interests are strong enough that they must be conciliated.
Conciliatory elites, he says, Hare generally more committed to passing
some kind of law than to fighting for its effective implementation.46 He
also recognizes that it is in countries where land reform has made the least
progress, as in the Philippines that the greatest threats to stability persist. 47
Land reform exacerbates class conflict in rural communities, especially
when landlord evasion causes suffering for peasants, e.g., eviction to make
way for mechanization and wage labor, inappropriately termed personal
cultivation in Philippine parlance. If such a period of conflict is only a
brief transition to full peasant ownership it is not destabilizing to the whole
political system. But when it continues indefinitely and is exploited by
sophisticated radical leadership, the consequences can be devastating. The
spread of guerrilla warfare in land reform areas in the 1980s is such a
consequence.
The lack of follow through in land reform may have explanations other than
the character of a conciliatory elite. It may be the result of the rampant
ritualism that characterizes so much of Philippine politics, the belief that
appearance is reality, that to make a declaration is to create a condition. This
style is so pervasive that many leaders may not even be conscious of the
lack of substance to their declarations.
The acceptance of ritual may also result from the clogging of
communication channels in an authoritarian regime, where the opportunity
for bad news to reach the top is very limited. In a centralized system of
decision making, when the reality is not fully known at the center there can
be no rectification of errors. Authoritarianism does not provide efficient
feedback. Yet many authors have extolled the advantages of highly
centralized regimes for implementing land reform. Samuel Huntington has
been one of these. He adds, however, that in addition to concentration of

power in an elite committed to reform there must be the mobilization of

the peasantry and their organized participation in the implementation of
reform. That is an intriguing combination, with a severe internal
contradiction.
A concentration of power is not compatible with freedom of organization,
which is based on the assumption that various interests in society have a
right to share in the decision-making process. That sharing took place for
the first time in 1971. When power was concentrated in 1972, independent
peasant organizations were crushed. By the late 1970s even those groups
that had been domesticated by martial law tried to bring to the President and
Secretary Estrella the complaints of small farmers, but their message fell on
deaf ears. They had no legitimacy within the decision-making process; they
were powerless.
The critique of a close observer of the Philippine program, one who follows
the Huntington school of thought, reveals a similar inconsistency. He points
out that land reform has been handicapped since 1972 because the
relationship between central authority and the peasantry has been one of
central dominance.49 He emphasizes the value of greater local initiative,
then in the next paragraph recommends that wider use might be made of the
military in implementing land reform! One wonders what such analysts
mean by local initiative. The military constitute the greatest single
constraint on autonomous peasant political activity especially in relation to
agrarian questions.
The final point that must be made in the attempt to understand the
inconclusive character of Philippine land reform relates to the differences
between central and local elites. While it is true that in the last decade
landed elements in the national political elite have declined in influence,
permitting ever stronger legislation in 1963, 1971 and 1972, changes in
local elites have been much slower. Despite the highly centralized character
of Philippine public administration since the Spanish times local political
leaders expected to be able to intervene in administrative matters to protect
their own interests, and did so with impunity. Furthermore, at the provincial
and municipal level civil servants were often relatives or recommendees of
local politicians. And even though local politicians from the 1950s or 1960s
had become a distinct category from the landlords, they were usually
closely linked. The habits of nearly three generations of electoral politics
died hard after 1972, so that local political leaders did not easily accept the

supremacy of the bureaucracy, continuing to manipulate into their own

ends. Thus the failure to implement land reform was often the gap between
central policy and local practice, which could not be effectively corrected
from the center. A mix of both authoritarian and democratic elements
combined to frustrate the implementation of reform.
If land reform is to be fully implemented, there must be a cleansing of the
bureaucracy of those who do not support it, along with much greater
autonomy for peasant organization and an adequately funded, clearly
committed central authority. It is difficult to foresee when these conditions
may prevail.
Notes
DAVID WURFEL holds a Ph.D. in government and Asian studies from the
Cornell University. He has conducted extensive research on land reform in
South Vietnam. Thailand and the Philippines, and reports his findings on the
subject in various periodicals and a compilation entitled, Government and
Politics in Southeast Asia. Wurfel has, at onc time or another, served on the
faculties of the University of Missouri, University of Michigan,
International Christian University in Tokyo and the University of Singapore.

The Constitution and Social Justice

The Constitutional and Social Context of Agrarian Reform

By: Christian S. Monsod, Chair-PARFUND and ONE VOICE; Member,
Constitutional Commission of 1986
(Multisectoral Seminar-Workshop on Agrarian Justice sponsored by the
Agrarian Justice Foundation-Bacolod, June 03, 2008)
The Constitution as the fundamental law is always invoked as a source of
absolute rights especially against the state.
But there is another aspect to peoples rights under the constitution when
there is an apparent conflict among provisions involving the rights of
private parties, and the state is called upon to resolve the conflict by
legitimate means at its disposal. This is intensified when the dispute arises
from a State policy that is the central, and sometimes, controversial, theme
of our Constitution social justice.
My presentation consists of the following:
1

The Constitution and Social Justice

The Constitutional Intent on Agrarian Reform

The Social Context

The Future of CARP

Social Justice was legally defined by our Supreme Court. It was expounded
eloquently by Justice Jose P. Laurel in the case of Calalang vs. Williams
which every law student is required to memorize.
Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism nor atomism
nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and
economic forces by the state so that justice in its rational and objectively
secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the
promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the government
of measures calculated to insure economic stability of all the component
elements of society through the maintenance of proper economic and social
equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community,
constitutionally, through the adoption of measures legally justifiable, or
extra-constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the
existence of all governments, on the time-honored principle of
saluspopuliestsupremalex.
But if I were asked to encapsulize in one phrase or sentence what social
justice is all about, I would say that it is in Section 1, Article XIII of our
Constitution which talks about, equitably diffusing wealth and political
power for the common good.
Social justice is thus about political reform and asset reform.

Historical background

Why agrarian reform?

The principal means of diffusing political power is through elections, with a

process that is clean, fair and orderly. There can be no real democracy
without real elections.

Peace, security
development

and

human

ii

Equity and Efficiency/Growth

We all agree, I assume, that our biggest national problem is poverty. Poverty
is largely a rural and agricultural phenomenon 70% of poor families live
in rural areas; 66% of poor families have household heads who are engaged
in agriculture.

Thus, the key to economic progress is agricultural development. And the

key to agricultural development is agrarian reform. There can be no real
social transformation without agrarian reform.

--reduce social, economic, and political inequality;

The constitution explicitly recognizes the strong linkage between

industrialization and economic progress (i.e. full employment), and
agriculture and agrarian reform in the second paragraph of Sec. 1, Article
XII on the National Economy:

--by equitably diffusing wealth and political power for the

The State shall promote industrialization and full employment

based on sound agricultural development and agrarian reform
The theoretical basis for asset and political reform is found in the
formulation by economist Kenneth Arrow (a Nobel Peace Prize awardee for
economics) who wrestled with the tension between the unerring efficiency
of the free market and the imperative that some kind of fairness should
prevail. His solution was brilliant, twisting the traditional thinking about
competitive markets and efficiency on its head. He proved that not only are
all markets efficient, all efficient outcomes can be achieved using a
competitive market, by adjusting starting positions. (Tim Harford The
Undercover Economist). This is asset and political reform is all about
adjusting starting positions before market forces and unhampered
competition are allowed to fully operate.
Unlike in the 1935 and the 1973 Constitutions, the 1987 Constitution
devoted a separate and comprehensive article to social justice.
The President of the Constitution Commission, Justice Cecilia MunozPalma, said that social justice is the heart of the new Constitution.
Ultimately, regardless of its imperfections that reflect the imperfectability of
those who tried to write it, the 1987 Constitution would be judged by the
efficacy and effectiveness of its provisions on social justice.

--remove cultural inequities;

common good.
Given the scope and reach of that mother provision in Art. XIII, other
articles of the Constitution contain social justice provisions. The most
relevant, of course, are the provisions under the Agrarian and Natural
Resources Reform section of Article XIII. Provisions, however, in other
parts of the Constitution underline the emphasis on social justice, to
mention a few:
--Art. XII, Sec. 1 The goals of the economy are a more
equitable distribution of opportunities, income and wealth
--Art.XII, Sec. 6 The use of property bears a social function and
all economic agents shall contribute to the common good.subject to the
duty of the State to promote distributive justice
--Art.XIV, Sec.1 The State shall protect and promote the right of
all citizen to quality education at all levels
--Art.II, Sec. 26 The State shall guarantee equal access to
opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be
defined by law.
--several other provisions, as in the Legislative and Executive
articles, such as those on term limits, absentee voting, party-list system,
sectoral representation in the local sanggunians and others.

Sec. 1 of Article XIII states: The Congress shall give the highest priority to
the enactment of measures that:
--protect and enhance the right of all the people to human
dignity;

The Constitutional Intent

In the deliberations of the Constitutional Commission, there was clear
consensus on the following:

(1)There is a significant difference between equality and equity. Inequality

is a condition that can exist without necessarily any connotation of a moral
wrong. Inequality by itself is not evil, unless it is gross. Equality is a
standard to aspire for but a realistic approximation of it, as Laurel suggests,
is reasonable enough. Thus, the Constitution speaks of merely reducing
inequalities because the objective is not to levelize all the people in all
aspects of social, economic and political life.
Equity is something else. It is a normative or ethical concept and what is
inequitable is wrong or evil or unjust. Hence the reference to cultural
inequity in the Section 1 and the retention of the objective of equitably
diffusing wealth and political power for the common good. The context of
social reform is a society with unjust structures built up through the years
which cannot be dismantled except through asset reform such as
redistribution of land.
(2)However, the Commission was mindful of the fact that it is difficult to
implement asset reform or land redistribution in a democratic setting such
as ours. The more successful ones (Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China) were
undertaken authoritarian rule. Hence, the compromise in our Constitution
was to give just compensation despite the clear empirical evidence in the
experience of other countries that (1) redistribution does not result in an
equitable society if assets such as land are priced at market values to
determine just compensation and (2) that just compensation will only work
if the government is willing and has the resources to subsidize the farmers
with supporting services and to pay the difference between just
compensation to the landowner and affordable cost to the farmer, with the
cost of such subsidies being borne by taxpayers. The compromise formula,
as we know, was somewhere in-between assessed and market value as
adjusted by the productivity of the land. This was a big concession to
landowners with consequences on the budgetary cost of agrarian reform.
(3) Agrarian reform should admit of other conditions, such as ecological,
developmental and equity considerations (such as rights of small
landowners and indigenous communities). But we must beware of creeping
exceptions not originally contemplated that take land out of the scope of
agrarian reform, such as tourism and now, even sugarland for ethanol.
(4) It was clear in the deliberations that the civil rights of the landowners
with respect to the land such as Art. 428 (right to enjoy, dispose and

recover). Art. 429(right to exclude others from the property, the right to
enclose or fence property, the right to compensation in case of eminent
domain), Art.440 (accession), Art. 478-481 (right to quiet title), are
subordinated to and cannot take precedence over the constitutional mandate
on social justice, such as agrarian reform.
(5) The pursuit of social justice is always subject to the requirements of due
process in the exercise by the State of the powers delegated to it by the
people. The three most important of these powers are taxation, eminent
domain and police power. When taxation and eminent domain are
inadequate to the task of attaining an equitable diffusion of wealth and
political power, the State can validly use its police powers.
(6) There may be exemptions, or the need for incentives, authorized by the
Constitution and implementing legislation. There may be procedural
requirements. There may even a time line for accomplishing it, in the
interest of faster justice. But with all due respect, it does not appear from
the deliberations of the Commission that all these conditions can be used to
dilute, circumvent or frustrate the objective of the constitutional provision
that the process must result in the farmer being given the land and the
landowner being given just compensation.
What is the point of citing the deliberations in the Commission when there
is no disagreement, even from the rich, that landed interests and gross
inequalities of wealth and income have existed for more than a hundred
years and need to be corrected? The point is that it is difficult enough to
navigate through the legal and economic constraints of the Philippine
version of agrarian reform without the government itself, and, in some
cases, our courts, being a part of the problem.

Social Context the historical background

-the long history of social injustice that started when the Spaniards
destroyed the traditional system of land ownership common ownership of
land by village clusters known as barangays, similar to existing systems
among several indigenous communities and distributed the land
(haciendas) to Spanish military and clergy or established encomiendas
(administrative districts).

-The take-over by the U.S. which did not address this problem, but only
established a new class, although certain changes were introduced, i.e. land
titling, homestead and limitations on size of ownership.

* a. Concentration of assets may lead to concentration of power and

ability to produce political reflective of sectoral or personal
preferences.

-the 1935 Constitution addressed the issue of foreign access to land, i.e.
corporations must have at least 60% Filipino ownership, and use-rights
were limited in time. Other reforms included limitations on interest rates on
loans and an increase in the sharecropping share from 50% to 70%. But
very little of these laws were really followed in practice and the Huk
rebellion was born.

* b. High inequality breeds social discontent, leading to political

instability, reducing investment and therefore growth.

-Under the Magsaysay and the Macapagal administrations, land reform was
again tackled, such as the Mindanao resettlement program, but no
significant results were really achieved in terms of scope and magnitude of
land transfer.
-With martial law, the whole of the Philippines was declared a land reform
area under PD 27. Significant progress was made, but the continued practice
of the share tenancy system, the exemptions allowed and shortcomings in
support systems (although it was Marcos who set up the new Agrarian
Reform Department) did much to limit the effectivity of the reforms in
addressing rural poverty.
-the CARL years since 1988 land distribution increased substantially but
lack of support systems, principally funding and infrastructure, is still
prevalent, and many big landed estates have not yet been included in the
program. The latest inventory by the Department of Agrarian Reform is
about 1.3 million hectares, which are the most productive and valuable of
the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition (big haciendas) which have
managed to resist coverage through legal maneuvering, force and violence
and the use of political influence. To this area must be added some 600,000900,000 hectares of government land still to be distributed by DENR.

Why Agrarian Reform?

1.Political economy considerations

2.Credit/Insurance market imperfections To the extent that physical

assets are commonly accepted as collateral, the poor, who do not have these
assets, may be unable to access credit and hence take advantage of incomeenhancing technologies and production processes. They may also not have
the means to smooth household consumption especially food and health
and education services for children in the event of downside risks,
effectively preventing them from escaping the poverty trap from one
generation to the next. Investment in human capital formation and
economically profitable opportunities may thus be confined to owners of
land assets.

Peace, Human Security and Human Development

The Human Development Report for the Philippines for 2005 comments on
the relationship between agrarian reform and Peace, Human Security and
Human Development (quoting the Borras study):
By 2002, CARP officially claimed to have redistributed six
million hectares of land to more than 2 million peasant households,
accounting for nearly half of the countrys agricultural lands and
two-fifths of the total rural households respectively
Parenthetically, the latest DAR figures is that about 6.9 hectares have been
distributed, with some 2 million holders of Emancipation Patents and
CLOAs. In addition farmer beneficiaries with leasehold contracts number
1.16 million and 8,000 farmers are beneficiaries under the stock distribution
option.
The number by any standard are among the largest land transfer
accomplishment of any agrarian reform program in the world.

The HRD says:

Not surprisingly, the rate of accomplishment of land reform turns
out to be a good predictor of the frequency of armed conflict: the
higher the proportion of land redistributed under the agrarian
reform program relative to the potential land reform area, the lower
the likelihood of conflict..
However, the HDR notes that the social dimension of agrarian reform
appears to be less critical with respect to armed conflict, with other social
indicators, for example adult education, having a greater impact on
lessening its occurrence.
The Twin Goals of Equity and Efficiency/Growth
-Equity; social justice as a constitutional mandate
-Efficiency/Growth This objective tends to be overlooked in the
national dialogue on agrarian reform.
While equity is indeed the primary objective of agrarian reform, we cannot
ignore economic growth. For an improvement in land inequality is not just
about advancing equity goals; it is also about raising the trajectory of
income growth by improving over-all economic efficiency
Studies show that economic growth is required for poverty reduction
countries doing well with poverty reduction are also countries that have
done well in growth.
Fortunately, the empirical evidence disproves the false dilemma that the
landowners are trying to raise against CARP with such issues as
productivity, progress and economic growth. The evidence shows
categorically that there is no contradiction between agrarian reform and real
income growth, industrialization, and progress as long as the support
services and infrastructure as promised by the law are provided by the State.
Thailand is a good model on how agrarian reform, productivity in
agriculture and economic growth go together the average landholding is
about 1.5 hectares and no farm is more than one kilometer away from a
road. Yet large-scale production and other variations on collective farming
have made them one of the biggest exporters of farm products. In other

words, there is no contradiction between large-scale production and smallscale ownership of land.
Assessing CARP
What is the performance record of CARP in our country?
Phase I Comprehensive studies at the micro (household), meso
(community) and macro (sectoral and economy-wide) impact of CARP up
to 2000.
Phase II Re-examined earlier findings in light of additional newly
available data (agriculture and population census, national household
surveys and update panel data)
Allegations to the contrary, agrarian reform has resulted in significant
benefits:
-Land tenure improvement: Census of Agriculture and Fishers
1990 and 2002 show (a) more farmers owning and operating the
lands they till; (b) improved tenure security through leasehold, and
(c) reduction in share tenancy among farmers.
-Social Capital: In 1993, average membership in cooperatives or
organizations in Agrarian Reform Community (ARC) barangays
was 54. As of 2006, the average increased to 78 farmer-members
per barangay, even when the number of barangays covered also
increased.
-Improvements in Welfare: Non-monetary
-Households in the ARC barangays are slightly better off than
those in the non-ARC barangays, as demonstrated by the higher
proportion of houses with strong roofs and higher educational
attainment of household members aged 6 to 24 years.
-Improvements in Welfare: Monetary
-Estimates indicate that in 1990, the per capita expenditure in
ARC barangays was slightly lower than in non-ARC barangays. In

2000, both figures have increased, with ARC barangays having a

per capita expenditure higher than non-ARCs, amounting to P223
(in 2006 prices)
-Poverty incidence in ARCs decreased from 40% to 25% over the
period 1990 and 2000. Moreover, this reduction is slightly higher
than that experienced by those in the non-ARC barangays.
-Benefit-Cost Analysis of ARC and mainstream agricultural
development strategy:
-Both yield positive net present values (NPV). For the ARC
strategy, the initial year yielded a negative NPV, which is to be
expected. Overall, however, the ARC strategy results in
incremental NPV of P3.4 billion.
-Effect on Incomes of Land Ownership and the ARC strategy
(controlling for other factors):
-Per capita expenditure, per capita income, and per capita
net farm incomes of farmers with no lands (whether in
ARCs or non-ARCs) are significantly lower than their
counterparts owning land, i.e.,
-Impact on Poverty of Land Ownership: -ownership of
land implies that the odds that you are non-poor are at
least 1.76 to as much as 2.6 times that of being poor.
In short, ownership does matter.
The Future of CARP

While there is significant empirical evidence that agrarian reform has

yielded significant benefits and has the potential for greater benefits, the
fact is that it has encountered implementation problems, notably- slow
processes in land acquisition and distributioninsufficient technical
capacitylegal disputesprotests against coverage, classification,
identification and qualification of beneficiariesexemptions from CAR and
land conversionlandowners resistance harassment judicial cases
involving land valuation and just compensationand, of course,
FUNDING.
Balisacan et al in the book Securing Rice, Reducing Poverty says that
while studies have shown that CARP provided direct benefits to the
beneficiaries, the overall conditions in the terms of poverty and inequality
seemed to have not significantly improved. He cites as reasons that the
initial wholesale distribution concentrated more on non-contentious and
convenient areas and that access to credit among farmers had been very
limited. May FBs chose to sell or mortgage property rights to private traders
and moneylenders (i.e. underground land market transactions).
However, Balisacan also cites latest studies that show conclusively that, for
the Philippines as a whole, 82% of the provinces can significantly increase
real income growth by reducing inequality, i.e. by social justice measures to
redistribute assets, particularly of private landed estates. These are the
lands, as mentioned earlier, that have managed to resist coverage, and the
terminating CARP now would in effect reward the intransigent who have
defied the Constitution.
Whatever the problems encountered by CARP, the point is that CARP is not
the cause of the continuing poverty nor the obstacle to solving it. On the
contrary, completing CARP in accordance with the mandate of the
Constitution is a necessary, although not a sufficient, condition to correct
social injustice, and achieve sound agricultural development growth.
In the final analysis, the future of CARP is a political decision of those in
power with respect to two questions:
How much reforms is the government willing to undertake
political will)?

(i.e.

How much resources is government willing to devote to such

reforms?
So far, there is much to be anxious about in the response by the Arroyo
administration to both questions. Agrarian reform was not even included in
the 10-point agenda of the Arroyo administration when it took power in
2001. And the bishops and the agrarian community has been informed by
administration officials that there is strong resistance from within the
administration coalition to block the bill, and its passage by the Congress is
becoming problematical. More than the administration may think, nonpassage of the bill would amount to a political miscalculation.
There isnt much time. Without an extension and provision of funds beyond
June 2008, the acquisition and distribution phases of CARP will come to a
halt. And while the President has said that she is fully behind extending
CARP, events may be overtaking the program. The certification of the bill
as urgent which the agrarian reform community has been asking for the past
year is late in coming. The promise by DAR to accelerate notices of
coverage to large private lands particularly in 15 priority provinces has not
happened. Complementary legislation, such as the National Land Use Act,
are dead in the water. The proposed comprehensive approach to credit in the
countryside, jointly prepared by DAR and the agrarian community, has not
been filed to date.
There is some news that is both good and bad. The good news is that in
recent high profile cases such as the cases of Task Force Mapalad in Negros
Occidental and the Sumilao farmers in Bukidnon, we have witnessed the
phenomenon of the President personally intervening in the cases that led to
compromise agreements. And in the case of the Arroyo farmlands in
Negros, about 558
hectares of the 1,000 hectares promised by the
President in 2001 have been distributed, and she came out recently with a
statement that she has instructed the DAR to act on the distribution of the
balance.
While the farmers are very grateful for the direct intervention of the
President on their behalf, the bad news is why does it need the Presidents
personal intervention for the problems to be solved? She has many other
issues of national importance that demand her attention and the fact that she
had to intervene in individual cases is a sad commentary on the governance
of the CARP. With all due respect to our friends of DAR, the I and the

farmers of task force mapalad are concerned, if not often disappointed with
the performance of some local DAR officials in Negros Occidental. I hope
you do not our being candid. But this is not a time for euphemism.
One unfortunate consequence of the compromise approach, which our
judicial system encourages, is that no definitive rulings are results on key
issues, such as the cancellation of conversion orders as in the Sumilao case
for non-implementation within the 5-year period.
We thank those judges and those in the legal profession, as well as those in
the enforcement agencies, who play vital roles as well in the delivery of
agrarian justice who do their in making agrarian reform work. And we hope
that those who do not will think more deeply about the transcendental issues
involved in the cases.
If indeed the Executive is the sword, the Legislative is the purse and the
Judiciary is the conscience of a nation, it should be easy enough for all of
them to muster their passion and talents to go beyond the strict
technicalities of the law, to uphold the spirit and intent of constitutional
mandate on social justice.
Chief Justice Concepcion, in the deliberations on social justice, asked the
indulgence of the Commission for the sometimes literal and narrow
jurisprudential view of lawyers about the vision of social transformation
that the non-lawyers in the Commission seemed to see with clearer eyes.
In summary, if we go back to the original question posed at the beginning of
this session about the apparent conflicting rights of farmers and farm
workers and those of landowners in the implementation of agrarian reform,
the simple answer is provided by the Constitution itself the landowner
gets just compensation (which is a huge concession, given the government
resources needed for it) and the farmer gets the land. That is why the
corporatizationwindow that Hacienda Luisita availed of is an
anachronism in CARP because the farmers never get control of the land. A
compromise to allow the farmers to take over 3% of the shares every year,
was rejected by the Aquino administration. Had it been incorporated in the
law, after 17 years, estates like Luisita would now be be under the
management control of the farmers with 51% of the shares.

In closing, may I say that I dont envy those of you at the frontlines of the
legal and moral dilemmas that abound in concrete situations in the field. It
is easy enough for many of us to know what to do when observing
situations from a distance. But as a commentator said about President
Clinton and his published book, His integrity is at its highest when the
situation is at its hypothetical. I wish all of you the best in the difficult task

of addressing the problems at the frontlines, which is certainly far from

being hypothetical.
Thank you for the honor of speaking to you today.