Agrarian Reform Philippines

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Agrarian Reform Philippines not only accelerated the productivity of the

agricultural sector of the country, but promoted the agro-based industries as
well.

Agrarian Reform acts and laws in Philippines: gradual evolution

The beginning: The idea of initiating land reform programs in

Philippines can be traced back to 1963. The enactment of the Republic Act
(RA) 3844, Section 49, better known as the Agricultural Land Reform Code
emphasized on the foundation of an organization called the Land
Authority.Established on 8th August 1963, the Land Authority was endowed
with the responsibility of implementing the Republic Act 3844 policies. To
hasten up the other activities associated with the land reform programs in
Philippines, the Republic Act 3844 offered formal recognition to all the
existing agencies involved with similar activities. The functions of these
agencies were re-coordinated, with the aim of fulfilling the common
objectives of the land reform programs.
The 1970s: Republic Act 6389, popularly referred to as the Code of
Agrarian Reform of the Philippines proposed the foundation of an
autonomous department, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). This
independent body was formed to replace the existing Land Authority. The
Department of Agrarian Reform was further re-named as the Ministry of
Agrarian Reform in 1978, under the then Parliamentary form of government
in Philippines.
1980 onwards: The year 1988 saw the formulation of Republic Act
No. 6657, popular as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law or CARL. The
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law or CARL was enacted to offer lawful

basis for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform

Program or CARP, suggesting the implementation methods as well. In fact, it
was the CARL, which empowered the CARP for supporting the activities of
the agro-based industries in the country.

The post-2000 era: The Department of Agrarian Reform was further

re-named as the Department of Land Reform in this era. The Executive
Order 364, signed by the Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was
enacted to widen the areas of operation of the Department of Land Reform,
making it accountable for all land reform activities and programs in
Philippines. Further, the Executive Order also made the Department,
controller and supervisory body of the Philippine Commission on Urban Poor
(PCUP). In addition, recognition of the ownership of the ancestral lands of
the native Philippine population also came under the jurisdiction of the
Department of Land Reform.
Very recently, Executive Order No. 456 was signed by President Arroyo on
23rd August 2005. This Order commanded the Department of Land Reform to
revert back to its original name, Department of Agrarian Reform. The aim of
the Executive Order 456 was to do something more other than mere
reformation of the agrarian land. This specific order considered all the
important factors to promote beneficial activities which can lead to overall
economic upliftment of the Philippine agricultural sector and the peasant
class.

Agricultural Sector of Philippines and Agrarian Reforms: effects

In spite of Agrarian Reform, absence of symmetry in the land allocation

pattern persisted as a permanent plight to the agricultural sector of
Philippines.

There was hardly any change which took place in the existing
relationship between the landlords and the peasants. The relationship was
not at all liberalized, but continued to be feudal in nature. Here, the
ownership of agricultural land remained concentrated in the hands of few
landlords. It was basically due to the narrow-mindedness of the landholders
who showed more interest in controlling the uses of their plots rather than
in achieving sustained increase in agricultural productivity.

When the chunks of the agricultural land were under the control of the
landowners, they put them on rent to the farmers for cultivation. Hence, the
tenancy rates in the Philippines rural areas existed and varied between 50%
to 70%. This made the landownership somewhat monopolistic in nature in
Philippines, where wealth concentrated in the hands of the rich and powerful
landlords, while the peasant classes were pushed towards poverty.
However, the situation showed substantial improvements, with the passing
of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) or Republic Act No. 6657.
The Law utilized the maximum portion of the 50 billion (US$1.92 billion) fund
in initiating developmental land reform programs. Though the development

was quite slow in terms of the allocating the lands to the tillers, yet the
government was successful in allocating an aggregate of 2.56 million
hectares of land among the landless peasants.

PROs AND CONs OF AGRARIAN REFORM

The agrarian reform program's main thrust is to remedy the old feudal system
of land ownership and inequitable land distribution. Having this main
objective, the agrarian reform is good not only in terms of economic
productivity but also in alleviating the problem of social injustice. If
implemented properly, farmers who worked hard for their landlord's property
will be rewarded for their own perseverance. Moreover, farmer's moral will go
up because they can fully savor the fruit of their labor. Consequently, this will
lead to higher productivity.
In the Philippines, CARP is the tool to implement this agrarian reform.
Reading the guidelines and policy of this program, this promotes the
betterment of the farmers who were abused by their landlords and were
deprived to own the land that was rightfully theirs.
The Department of Agrarian Reform has the task of implementing this
program. In the term where Secretary Ernesto Garilao sat as its department
head, 50% of the required distributed land where given to deserving farmers.
On the other hand, the cons of this program were more than what it can offer.
First, the CARP is a defective law devoid of unclear policies on land
valuations and transfers. There was no clear-cut policies regarding the
transfer of certificate of titles of the distributed lands. Moreover, expediencies
on acquiring lands from the landlords were not explained well which makes
this procedure difficult to implement.
Second, DAR has changed secretaries often which made it difficult for the
success of the program. For every president elected, cabinet secretaries were
replaced more than once which makes it hard for the present secretary to
conduct a continuous plan for agrarian reforms. Moreover, this event leads to
the interruption of the current administration's momentum of doing such
projects.

Third, there is a slow implementation of this program due to two main

reasons. One is that since our country has a democratic system of
government, everyone is entitled to undergo due process. A farmer who has a
complaint against his or her landlord must go to the court and process the
necessary papers and then wait for the court's decision. The landlord if he or
she has a complaint must take the same procedures. However, in Philippine
society, due to the power and influence of these landlords, most of the
decision side with them and causes injustice to the farmers who deserve to
have justice. The other cause of the slow implementation is the landlord's
resistance, which threatened the lives of local DAR workers and farmers.
Fourth, this program is prone to corruption since the people involve have
wealth and power with them. Naturally, every rule will be disregarded once
money and politics are involved. This also makes DAR officials to side with the
landowners rather than promoting the rights of the farmers and tenants.
Fifth, there is no policy in this program where it gives some of the government
agencies to the aid in implementing the program. There is no means of
coordinating these organizations.
Sixth, in the context of Philippine government and politics, CARP is too
idealistic. Without having any checking mechanisms for its enforcers, this is
bound to fail. Maybe if graft, corruption and greed does not exist here in our
country, this is a good program that our country can use to promote the growth
of our economy.
By far the most painstaking and careful undertaking to evaluate the
performance of CARP on beneficiary welfare is the 2007 APPC Impact
Assessment Study funded by DAR (updated in November 2008 as Land
Reform, Rural Development and Poverty in the Philippines: Revisiting the
Agenda). [T]he effort is remarkable for its attention to detail.
Thats from Raul Fabellas paper titled CARP: Time to Let Go, where he
describes a major source of evidence to prove his point.
Well, Reader, that study by the Asia Pacific Policy Center was the basis of a
presentation I made to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines in
support of my contention that the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program

was worth completing. How then could Fabella use it to show that CARP has
failed? Which of us misread? You judge, Reader.
Impact on Income. 1) The average values of per capita income, per capita
expenditure, 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. 2) The average values of the three income
categories in the other four categories of farmers (those owning land) are not
significantly different from each other. THIS SHOWS THE IMPORTANCE OF
OWNERSHIP OR CONTROL OF LAND IN DETERMINING INCOMES OF
FARMERS. (Emphasis supplied-SCM)
Impact on Poverty. In particular, ownership of land implies that the odds
that you are non-poor is at least 1.76 times to as much as 2.6 times that of
being poor.
Does that sound that the 2007 APPC study found CARP a failure? The first of
its six recommendations, in fact, was to finish the CARP scope, especially
the lands under compulsory acquisition, which are the lands that really matter
when equity and prospects for long-term growth are considered.
The 2008 update that Fabella mentions has the stated objective of providing
support to the Government of the Philippines in its thrust to improve the
welfare of the rural poor through the extension of CARP. Why would it do that
if it thinks CARP is a failure and that it is time to go?
Here are its key findings on CARPs impact on poverty: 1) Positive impact on
provincial growth (Balisacan and Fuwa, 2007) and hence on poverty indirectly;
2) But very small direct effect on poverty, especially during the last decade; 3)
Redistribution of private land has strong effect on poverty: +10 percent
accomplishment leads to +0.3 percent in rate of poverty reduction; 4)
Compulsory acquisition has strongest effect on poverty: +10 percent leads to
+0.8 percent in rate of poverty reduction; 5) Failure to target prime private
agricultural lands and slow implementation appear as causes of disappointing
progress.
The point that is being made in both studies is obviously not that it is time for
CARP to go because it has failed miserably but that progress has not been as
expected. And both studies (remember, this was written five to six years ago)
point out what has to be done. They do not recommend throwing out the baby
with the bath water, as what seems to be what the Time-To-Go advocates
want.

So it is clear that CARP needs to be fully implemented, not killed. If every

government program is to be scrapped because it has not performed
according to target, we would have no education program, no Commission on
Electionsin fact, we should scrap the countrys entire medium-term
development plan. Does that make sense?
Why am I such an advocate of CARP, as flawed as it is? As I said, the impact
studies show that there have been gains, that the gains outweigh the losses
(cost-benefit analysis). More importantly, sometime in 2008 Ciel Habito gave a
report card on the asset reform programs of the government (CARP,
indigenous people, urban land reform, housing) based on a nationwide survey
of beneficiaries. He reported that 81 percent of the CARP beneficiaries stated
that despite the difficulties they experienced (lack of credit, support services,
infrastructure), they are better off now than they were before CARP.
I recall that during the first Aquino regime 27 years ago, we discussed the
pros and cons of CARP with a farmer and a landowner in a TV program. The
landowner said he was against CARP because the farmer-beneficiaries would
be given three hectares or less each, and that would not be enough to keep
them alive. The farmer replied: Just give us the land and the support services,
and I assure you, we will do the rest.
After 27 years, the same argument is being made: The landholdings of the
beneficiaries are too small. Yet no one seems to remember that the average
farm size in Japan, South Korea and China are 1.37, 1.23, and 0.43 hectares,
respectively. Small is indeed beautiful. In fact, the UN International Fund for
Agricultural Development (2008) said that central to global food security is the
productivity of smallholder farms of less than two hectares.
Let us not forget the basics, as set forth in the 2007 APPC study: The
evidence suggests that on the average, a developing country with an initially
high land inequality is expected to have a lower long-term income growth rate
and slower pace of poverty reduction than a country with a more favorable
land distribution.
Well, the Philippines as a whole has a larger Gini coefficient for land
distribution (i.e., land is more unequally distributed) than the average for East
Asia and the Pacific. It also exhibited the lowest average growth rate in the
50-year period between 1960 and 2009 among our Asean neighbors Thailand,
Indonesia and Malaysia, which, together with South Korea and China, are all
rapid-growth countries. Does that ring a bell?

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/72846/time-to-let-go-or-not2#ixzz3YIs4cRlJ

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