LAND REFORM & AGRARIAN

REFORM
Economics by Sicat
LAND REFORM

•Integrated set of measure

designed to eliminate obstacles to
economic and social development
arising out of defects in one
agrarian structure.
LAND REFORM

•Improvements of the farmer’s

relationship to the land he
cultivates
AGRARIAN REFORM
• Concerns the redistribution of lands, regardless of crops or
fruits produced to farmers and regular farm workers who are
landless, irrespective of tenurial arrangement, to include the
totally of factors and support services designed to lift this
economic status of the beneficiaries and all other
arrangements alternative to physical redistribution of lands,
such as production, profit sharing, labor administration and
the distribution of shares of stock, which allow beneficiaries
to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.
AGRARIAN REFORM

•Total development of the

farmers, i.e., economic, social
and political transformation
AGRARIAN REFORM

•Is the redistribution of agricultural lands to

farmers and regular farmworkers who are
landless, irrespective of tenurial
arrangement.
•It includes the provision of support services
such as: credit extension, irrigation, roads
and bridges, marketing facilities, human
resource and institutional development
Historical Background

•Philippine land problems had their roots

during the long Spanish Regime.
•All lands were considered crown lands of
Spain
•Spanish crown gave away lands to private
persons and institutions (mainly religious) as
rewards for their services
Historical Background
•encomienda system allowed encomenderos
to extract tributes from peasants on those
crown awarded lands
•Abuses of encomenderos led to the
abandonment of the encomienda land
system but, paved the way for the “share
tenancy or the kasama system
SHARE TENANCY

•Otherwise known as “kasama” system,

developed out of practice of the
landowners (including church orders)
to lease portion of their landed estates
to intermediaries who in return rented
out small parcels to peasants.
•The American colonial government
introduced a system of land registration
through the acquisition of land titles.
•After 1902, American colonial
government decided to replace the
tenancy system with owner-operated
farms
•The break-up of church lands and their
resale to citizens was one of the major land
policies of the American colonial period
•A new landowning class of Filipinos (and
Americans) consolidated landholdings into
haciendas and perpetuated the share-
tenancy system
Post war land reforms
• After political independence was achieved in
1946, land reform issues became the
predominant agricultural problem
• Discontentment of tillers and other agricultural
workers found expression in the Hukbalahap
rebellion
• Attention was focused on the problem of
improving tenancy conditions
Post war land reforms

•Under the presidency of Ramon Magsaysay,

a weak land reform law was passed in 1955
•The law allowed the distribution of lands to
the landless farmer through the exchange of
large landholdings (hacienda) for public
lands to be opened in Mindanao, and the
division of private land by agreement with
landowners
Post war land reforms
• Ceiling on landownership was set at 144 hectares
• Government could acquire land only upon petition of a
majority of tenants on a landholding and only for areas
exceeding 300 hectares of contiguous land” owned by
natural persons, or exceeding 600 hectares of land owned by
corporations
• Compensation for expropriated lands was to be in cash
which was almost financially impossible for a government
that was strapped
The agricultural land reform code of 1963
• Diosdado Macapagal introduced a land reform
program (Republic Act 3844) that pushed the
limits of the land reform objectives from tenancy
to owner-operated farms
• Emphasis was on increasing the production of
food and commercial crops by transforming the
methods of land utilization in the country
• Code was meant to be production-oriented
Three stages

1.Conversion of tenancy to
leasehold arrangement 25%
rental share
2.Leasehold to ownership
3.Full ownership
• The Philippine government believed that the
change in the structure of land ownership or
land redistribution is only the first step towards a
successful agrarian reform
• Private estates, could be purchased by
negotiation or by expropriation, with the ceiling
set on estates have (but estates of over 1,024
hectares were to be tackled first)
• Land redistribution must be followed closely by
credit extension, technical services, cooperative
movements, provision of indispensable inputs
• Code provided for the creation of Land
Authority, Land Bank Office of the Agrarian
Counsel, Agricultural Productivity Commission
and Agricultural Credit Administration
• The land reform code applied only to grain lands
(rice and corn)
• To escape the land reform law, landowners used
their vast lands for other crops, notably sugar, in
anticipation of their exemption from land reform
• Families with large landed estates were able to
subdivide lands into smaller 75-hectare lands to
avoid expropriation
The 1972 Land Reform Program
• In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos succeeded in getting the
land reform code amended (RA 6389)
• Major amendments consisted of the automatic
conversion of all share tenancy contracts into
leaseholds and the reduction of the maximum
retention limit, in the case of expropriation from 75 to
24
• Ministry of Agrarian Reform was created to implement
the program directly
Presidential Decree 27

•Declared the whole country as a land reform

area and spelling out the changes in the
land reform program
•Seeking to emancipate the farmer from the
bondage of the soil, it was the culmination
of all legislative attempts in the past to
implement an honest-to-goodness agrarian
reform program
Salient points
• Only rice and corn lands are covered by agrarian
reform
• Ownership of only 3 hectares of irrigated land or 5
hectares of non-irrigated land
• Cost of land equals two and one-half times the
average of three normal years of harvest immediately
preceding the decree and to be paid in equal
amortizations for 15 years at 6% interest per annum
Salient points

•No title of land will be granted to a

farmer until he is a full-pledged
member of a farmer’s cooperative
•No transfer of land except of the
government or by hereditary
succession
Presidential Decree 27

•Landowner was also allowed to

retain not more than 7 hectares of
land provided that the landowner
was the cultivator or that he
intended to cultivate the land
The 1988 Land Reform: CARP

•Seeks to provide farmers and

farmworkers the opportunity to
enhance their dignity and
improve the quality of their lives
through greater productivity of
agricultural land
The 1988 Land Reform: CARP

•Was expanded in the 1988 to cover

the wide range of lands during the
administration of Corazon Aquino
•Broadened the land coverage to all
types of lands
The 1988 Land Reform: CARP
Objectives
1. to promote social justice
2. to move the national toward sound
rural development and industrialization
3. establish owner-cultivatorship of
economic-sized farms as basis of Philippine
agriculture
Coverage of CARP

1.All alienable and disposable lands

of the public domain devoted to or
suitable for agriculture
2.All lands of the public domain in
excess of the specific limits as
determined by Congress
Coverage of CARP

3.All other lands owned by the

government devoted to or suitable for
agriculture
4.All private lands devoted to or suitable
for agriculture regardless of the
agricultural products raised or that can
be raised
CARP’s Retention Limits

1. Five hectares for landowner

2. Three hectares to be awarded to each child
of the landowner subject to the following
qualifications:
2.1 at least 15 years old
2.2 actually tilling the soil or directly
managing the farm
CARP’s Beneficiaries
Landless residents of the same barangay or municipality in the
following order of priority:
1. Agricultural lessees and share tenants
2. Regular farmworkers
3. Seasonal farmworkers
4. Other farmworkers
5. Actual tillers of occupants of public lands
6. Collectives or cooperatives
7. Others directly working on the land
Salient features of CARP

1. Covers all agricultural lands and not only

those devoted to rice and corn
2. Covers not only those privately owned
tenanted lands but also that of agricultural
lands owned by MNCs and commercial
farms
3. Lower retention limits of three hectares
Salient features of CARP
4. Rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral
lands are protected to ensure their economic, social
and cultural well being
5. In determining just compensation, the cost of
acquisition of the land, the current value of like
properties, its nature, actual use and income, the
sworn valuation by the owner, the tax declarations
and the assessments made by government assessors
shall be considered
Salient features of CARP

6. Land awarded to beneficiaries

shall be paid to the Land Bank of
the Philippines on 30 annual
amortizations at six percent (6%)
interest per annum
• Ramos extended CARP for another 10 years in 1998
through RA No. 8532
- pet project was “ Agrarian Reform Communities
(ARCs)” which served as convergence areas for
government assistance in a bid to spur rural
development
• Arroyo extended CARP for another 5 years up to 2014
through RA No. 9700 better known as CARPER.