The Political Dimension of Agrarian Reform

The POLITICAL DIMENSION OF THE AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE PHILIPPINES

INTRODUCTION:

            “Agrarian Reform means 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 totality of factors and support services designed to lift the economic status of the beneficiaries and all other arrangements alternative to the physical redistribution of lands, such as production or profit-sharing, labor administration, and the distribution of shares of stocks, which will allow beneficiaries to receive a just share of the fruits of the lands they work.” (RA6657 Chapter II Section 7)This definition of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law actually was th culmination of the quest for a real land reform that the country aspired for from pre-colonial period up to the present. What makes this law significant for the people of Mindanao was its provision for ancestral land; something that the framers of the Constitution beginning Malolos Constitution up to the Constitution of 1973 had omitted

             In the Philippines, land distribution was a factor in governance from pre-colonial to the present. When the Spaniards came, a more systematic process was made to wean the pre-colonial Filipinos from their property rights where slavery was the mode of production. This means that wealth was measured in terms of how many slaves one possessed. Spaniards with their Regalian doctrine where the right of the monarch of their possessions including lands was absolute introduced the encomienda system which gave the right of the King to establish encomiendas to be awarded to their loyal subject. (Please see Jane Calkins Foster, “The Encomienda System in the Philippine Islands : 1571-1597” Loyola University Chicago. A Masters Thesis, 1956 p. 183p Note: Most of the sources she used were primary sources).While such right was limited to collect tributes from the natives on delimited territories this was later evolved as a form of land ownership institutionalized through the hacienda system. Haciendas were vast tracts of land cultivated for cash crops that were privately owned by hacienderos. They could be the principalia (native/mestizo elites) or religious orders who were awarded by Spain for their meritorious deeds through patronato real or were voluntary  donations by the principalia themselves. (ibid. also see Phelan, The Hispanization of the Philippines, Corpus, O.D., Roots of the Filipino Nation, vol.1) Inequality, thus, was traced to this colonial legacy.

             The American period systematized land ownership through the passage of a series of Land laws during the Taft administration (Reports of the Philippine Commission, 1901; The Philippine Gazette, Also see Renato Constantino, A Past Revisited 1975, Agoncillo and Guerrero, A History of the Filipino People). These laws became the bases of modern day land ownership in the Philippines. However, these proved to be contentious, particularly regarding public versus private lands. It was deemed that lands that were not properly titled  through the Torrens title system were considered public lands and are therefore disposable and alienable by the government. These lands were largely located in the virgin, uncultivated lands of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan. Resettlements to these public lands by settlers from Luzon and Visayas resulted

resulted to land dispossessions of the natives of Mindanao-the Moros and the indigenous people.

            The government resettlement programs to Mindanao was initiated by the Americans through the Department of Mindanao and Sulu. It answered the clamor develop the island as an agrarian resource for production of rice and corn as well as the business interests of the United States for gutta percha (or rubber) for their car manufacturing in the U.S. Mindanao also was rich in mineral (copper and gold mines) and timber resources. The homestead program that opened five resettlements in North Cotabato, known as agricultural colonies, paved the way for the landless Filipinos from Luzon and Visayas (see Pelzer, Settlements in Southeast Asia; also Peter Gowing, Mandate on the Moroland) to become owner-cultivators, as envisioned by the program. This program was considerably expensive for the government because the allocation for support of these settlers was huge (for their transportation, living allowances as well as loans to support their agrarian venture). Thus, the support was terminated after six years of implementation ( see Pelzer, Ulindang). However, Manuel Quezon, the president of the Philippine Commonwealth saw the political importance of resettling restive farmers and laborers from Luzon to Mindanao, thereby dubbed it as a “land of promise”. The NLSA or National Land Settlement Authority, as Quezon saw it, was also an opportunity to further legitimize Filipino presence into this far-flung territory of the Philippines. Furthermore, the growing Japanese ghetto in Davao had to be arrested due to Japanese expansionism during that time (Rico Jose, Japanese Military History in the Philippines). Thus, there was an exodus of Filipino settlers from Ilocos and Iloilo to southern Cotabato along the Allah and Koronadal Valleys. (see Ulindang, Resettling the Huks.)

             These resettlement programs ( to which were added the Land Settlement Development Corporation, Economic Development Corps and National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Agency) would be a bone of contention for the newly declared independent Republic after World War II, as they ostensibly caused distress and marginalization to both the Muslims and Indigenous peoples of Mindanao. The homesteading program of the government they believe was prejudicial to their interests and further dispossessed them from their ancestral domains.

             Agrarian Reform of the Philippine government through resettlement that was supposed to address the issues of landlessness apparently was apparently inadequate. Diosdado Macapagal issued Agrarian Land Reform Code of the Philippines for the first time, in 1963 that aims to :“TO ORDAIN THE AGRICULTURAL LAND REFORM CODE AND TO INSTITUTE LAND REFORMS IN THE PHILIPPINES, INCLUDING THE ABOLITION OF TENANCY AND THE CHANNELING OF CAPITAL INTO INDUSTRY, PROVIDE FOR THE NECESSARY IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES, APPROPRIATE FUNDS THEREFOR AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES”.  

    Thus, followed the government intervention to address the growing inequality in the country. Ferdinand Marcos had his own land reform program and finally, Corazon Aquino through the Constitution of 1987 also instituted land reform program, Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program(CARP) in the country..

            The Constitution of 1987 provided for a recognition of the rights of the indigenous peoples of their ancestral land as embodied in the IPRA law (citation). One could infer that peace and order problems in Mindanao could be traced to land problems and that beginning the promulgation of Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of 1988 or Republic Act 6657 was an attempt to find solutions to inequality in the Philippines.

            Currently, the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) which aimed to  address property and territorial rights of the Bangsamoro for equality; and to redress historical injustice is undergoing the proper legislative procedures towards its approval and implementation. As provided in this BBL, land ownership rights as already defined and implemented through the CARL will still be recognized, prior to its implementation.

BY: FAINA C. ABAYA-ULINDANG