Long-winded, bloody route to reform

In 1904, the US administration bought $7.2 million of major friar holdings

President Rodrigo Duterte is looking at the full implementation of land reform to end the decades-old communist insurgency which has been hampering economic growth in the countryside.

But the land reform issue has long been dogged with controversies, including the exemption of Hacienda Luisita to save the vast Central Luzon property owned by the family of the former President Corazon Aquino and later, former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III.

Daily Tribune takes a look at the long and painful struggle of farmers for land reform before President Duterte made a vow to distribute all lands in his effort to forge peace in all conflict-hit provinces.

1900-1930

• Taking possession of the Philippines following an agreement with Spain, its former colonizer, the Americans negotiated a settlement with the Church handing over lands after disestablishing the Catholic Church as the state religion via the 1902 Land Act.

•In 1904, the US administration bought $7.2 million of major friar holdings, covering some 166,000 hectares (410,000 acres). Half of this vast track of land was in the vicinity of Manila. Eventually, the land was resold to Filipinos, some of them tenants, but the majority of them were estate owners.

1931-1940

• Labor unions and peasant groups formed the PKP (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930) and advocated for land reform, generally in the farmlands of Central Luzon, the rice bowl of the Philippines.

• The Philippine Rice Share Tenancy Act of 1933 (Act 4054) was enacted for the regulation of share-tenancy contracts among rice land owners and farmers. The law, however, was not mandated and contracts were good only for one year. The landlords used this weakness to eject non-renewed tenants. Peasant organizations continued to lobby for contracts to be automatically renewable for as long as the tenants fulfilled their obligations.

• In 1936, an amendment was made on the Rice Share Tenancy Act to get rid of the loopholes, but landlords made its application relative and not absolute, hence it was never carried out.

• Peasants in Central Luzon were being threatened with wholesale eviction and, the following year, were ejected from their farmlands in 19391940, pushing the rural conflict to a full steam.

1941-1950

• Upon the Philippines’ independence from the United States, the Tenant Act of 1946 was created to provide 70/30 sharing arrangements and regulated share-tenancy contracts, as well as to resolve the ongoing peasant unrest in Central Luzon.

1951-1960

• The National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) was established via Republic Act 1160 of 1954 to resettle dissidents and landless farmers. It was aimed at rebel returnees to provide them home lots and farmlands in Palawan and Mindanao.

• Enacted the Agricultural Tenancy Act of 1954 (RA 1199) to govern the relationship between landowners and tenant farmers by organizing share-tenancy and leasehold system. The law provided the security of tenure of tenants. It also created the Court of Agrarian Relations.

• Creation of the 1955 Land Reform Act (RA 1400) for the formation of the Land Tenure Administration (LTA), which was responsible for the acquisition and distribution of large tenanted rice and corn lands over 200 hectares for individuals and 600 hectares for corporations.

• The Agricultural Credit Cooperative Financing Administration (RA 821) was created to provide small farmers and share tenants with low interest loans with rates of six to eight percent.

1961-1970

• Marked the start of redistributive land reform programs, starting with the Agriculture Land Reform Code of 1963 (RA 3844), which decreed the abolition of share tenancy, instituted a leasehold system and lowered the ceiling on agricultural land ownership to 75 hectares.

• The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was formed by Jose Maria Sison, and eventually the New People’s Army, the military arm of the CPP, the following year.

1971-1980

• The Agrarian Code of 1972 (or PD 27) improved the design limitations of RA 3844 and provided for confiscatory and nationwide implementation of the law.

• Sugar prices plummeted in the world market, causing a socioeconomic crisis in Negros. As a result, poverty and hunger prevailed in “Sugarlandia” and protest actions started with the demand for agrarian reform, fair wages, and improved government services in the region.

1981-1990

• In 1985, protesters including farmers and fisherfolk staged a noise protest in the town center of Escalante, Negros Occidental, which para-military forces tried to contain. It resulted in the Escalante massacre, leaving 30 protesters dead.

• President Corazon Aquino issued Presidential Proclamation 131 and Executive Order (EO) 229 to outline land reform which included sugar lands in 1987.

• Congress passes the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) under RA 6657 in 1988, which is the redistribution of agricultural lands to tenant-farmers from landowners paid in exchange by the government through just compensation.

• CARP was enacted as a “revolutionary kind of expropriation” but was marred by controversies as Aquino’s conflict of interest prevailed to protect her family’s ownership of Hacienda Luisita.

1991-2000

• President Fidel V. Ramos tried to fast-track the implementation of the CARP of Aquino, after which the Department of Agriculture distributed government-acquired hectares of land to be awarded to farmerbeneficiaries of only around 58.25 percent from the total, as the CARP was still challenged and lacked funds to be fully implemented.

• President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed EO 456, in which the Department of Agrarian Reform retained its name and reiterated that the CARL should be beyond just land reform and included the totality of all factors and support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries.

• President Benigno Aquino’s presidency renewed the completion of the agrarian reform program, hence realizing the goal of distributing all CAR-Peligible land by the end of his term in 2016.

2001-present

• In December 2008, CARP expired and the following year CAR-Per (which stands for Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms) was passed. It expired in 2014.